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BISHOP FOSTER'S 



HERESY. 



BY 



V 

REV. JAMES E. LAKE, B. D., 



/ .••>■ OF 

THE NEW JERSEY CONf 




BORDENTOWN, N. J. 
1889. 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1S89, 

By JAMES E. LAKE, 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. 



The Library 
of Congress 

washington 



GAZETTE PRESS, CAMDEN, N. J. 



INTRODUCTION. 



BY A METHODIST MINISTER OF MANY YEARS. 



I want to say my best word for this book. It de- 
serves it well, and it deserves a better and more power- 
ful word in its commendation than I am able to utter ; 
and that, too, will come in its time. It is a book for the 
hour, because it is born of the hour in conjunction 
with the eternal. It is the expression, true and ear- 
nest, of the heart and intellect of orthodoxy in re- 
sponse to the oppositions of science, falsely so called. 
Hence it must reverberate with welcome force through 
the church. 

An undeveloped philosophy mixed with revelation, 
makes a hybrid monster, proclaimed as the legitimate 
issue of advanced religious thought. Such appears 
the dualism of mind and matter applied by Bishop 
Foster to the Christian doctrine of the resurrection. 
Nothing could be more incoherent or more unscrip- 
tural. Against it this book strikes the keynote of the 
old and tried orthodoxy. 

Its argument from Scripture is clear as crystal, and 
stronger than links of steel. This is the supreme argu- 



4 INTRODUCTION. 

ment for the faithful, who believe in the infallible au- 
thority of the Bible, as the Word of God, which is the 
undisputed doctrine of the Methodist Church, and 
which we suppose is the doctrine of Dr. Foster as one 
of the Bishops of that church. Any other interpreta- 
tion of Scripture than that of this book is harsh and 
violent ; and, besides, this only has the support of all 
creeds called orthodox. To the law and the testi- 
mony is the first and final appeal of the true believer ; 
and it is here all the more important because in the 
book here criticised Bishop Foster virtually ignores 
Scripture by leaving it unconsidered, and delivers as 
final and Christian what appears to him to be philo- 
sophical, and because it so appears to his understand- 
ing. Let, then, the reader faithfully test " Beyond the 
Grave" by the sacred word as here expounded in ref- 
erence to it. Yet the exposition is not anything new, 
and does not claim to be. The very force of the ar- 
gument is that it is old as the Bible and Christian in- 
terpretation thereof. 

Equally clear and cogent is the consensus of the 
creeds of the churches and the utterances of all the 
great preachers and divines, who hold to the head, 
even Christ. 

Our author is also philosophical, in the main, in 
his psychological analysis, in which he expounds the 
conscious unity of body and mind. If ever there was 
anything in the sphere of philosophical speculation, 
which above all things deserves to be emphatically 
stigmatized as pre-eminently mere drivel, it is the as- 
sumption of an absolute gulf of contrast between body 



INTRODUCTION. 5 

and mind, or matter and spirit, which is the avowed 
foundation of Bishop Foster's questionable speculations 
and conclusions. 

This assumption is utterly alien to Scripture. It is 
true the Scriptures make an important distinction be- 
tween flesh and blood and spirit Matter, in the form of 
flesh and blood and bones, constituting our present 
corruptible bodies, is vastly different from the super- 
sensible, spiritual and immortal forms of our life and 
being. But that is a very different thing from con- 
trasting matter and spirit, per se ; which the Scriptures 
never do, unless it be in the passages in which they 
speak of God as a spirit pure and simple. 

This assumption and all the doubtful speculations 
of " Beyond the Grave " have but one foundation, the 
much lauded and superficial " philosophy of common 
sense," thrown up by Reid and Beattie as a barrier 
against the skepticism of Hume, a philosophy so-called 
which is despised by all the Germans, and by all phil- 
osophically developed minds everywhere ; who, since 
the time of Descartes, have discerned and maintained 
that all that we know of our body and mind is known 
as a conscious unity. There is, therefore, no justifica- 
tion either in Scripture or philosophy for the contempt 
of matter so prevalent in some quarters, and so con- 
spicuous in " Beyond the Grave." Matter has its place 
as God's creature. By its eternal Creator it is made 
for immortality as all his creations may reasonably be 
supposed to be. 

For rhetorical effectiveness matter and our body 
may be called the scaffolding of the spirit. But this 



6 INTRODUCTION. 

body is composed of material which will never perish. 
It will be a scaffold forever, though not in the same 
crude form, and for the same crude form or style of 
spiritual building. It will be elevated into the spirit 
rank, and become the scaffold of a correspondingly 
higher order of spiritual building; the glorified spirit- 
ual organization of the glorified spirit. 

But while the term scaffold may be allowed as an 
expression to designate the body in relation to the 
spirit as supersensible, yet like all analogies it must be 
limited. " Parables must not go on all fours." Our 
body is not a mere scaffold; far from it. It is vastly 
more. 

A mere scaffold is always rude and rough, without 
polish and art. The rougher and less costly the ma- 
terial, the better, as it cheapens the work of the build- 
ing, and so allows the more of beauty to be put on the 
building. The builder never cares about the looks of 
his scaffolding, but only for its strength and availability. 
Far different is it with the human body in relation to the 
supersensible spirit. Infinite pains have been bestowed 
on this sensible element of our being. As a mechan- 
ism it has always been the admiration of all human 
intelligence ; and in its better forms and expressions 
and action, it is a thing of inexpressible beauty and 
loveliness ; and the beauty and loveliness are not a 
mere accident, but clearly intrinsic to the structure 
and design of the Maker. Further, the beauty con- 
ferred on the body does not so far exhaust or con- 
sume the resources which otherwise might be expend- 
ed on the soul, the figurative building ; but, on the 



INTRODUCTION. 7 

contrary, it often helps the spirit and beautifies it, and 
always will where the spirit is not perverse. 

It is true that this sensible beauty may, in a large 
degree, be attributed to the supersensible beauty of the 
spirit, which shows itself through the face. But dead 
forms are beautiful, and beauty is stamped on nearly 
all natural things, the inanimate and inorganic. This 
fact is made one of the conspicuous arguments of 
" Natural Theology " in favor of the divine goodness. 
The exanimate human form usually retains its beauty 
so long as it is unmarred by the process of dissolution. 
Thus the beauty of the organism remains so long as 
it is an organism incorrupt and undecayed. 

Further, the scaffolding has no office or function in 
relation to a building as a building in use ; but only 
for what is not yet really a building, but only an 
approximation to a building, which is certainly not 
descriptive of all human souls. They are not unfit for 
use and action like an unfinished building, and the 
body is not related to them as a scaffold to a rising 
and untenantable fabric. The body is of service only 
or chiefly where the spirit has a certain sort and 
degree of completeness. At birth and in the prenatal 
condition, both, so far we know, are very incomplete 
and undeveloped, equally so, apparently. They grow 
and develope together, the spirit through the body, 
and doubtless also, though less obviously, the body 
through the spirit. And when the body has ceased 
to grow, it may, and usually is, the means by which 
the spirit still continues to grow for a period, as it is 
the mode of expression and the condition of various 
forms of experience and information. Then with the 



8 INTRODUCTION. 

decay of the body there is generally or always some 
decay in the power of spiritual expression and achieve- 
ment, and probably in the power of thought itself. It 
appears probable, if not manifest, that the body is the 
form of the life of a finite spirit in every stage of its 
development, in all worlds, to all eternity, the form, 
rank and glory of the body varying with that of the 
spirit, just because it is generally the expression of 
the spirit's life; so that the body, therefore, that now is, 
shall be transfigured with the glorification of the spirit. 

More frequently we meet with the mention of the 
body under the figure of a house, or dwelling, in which 
the spirit lives and works, and through which it looks 
and speaks and thus reveals itself. This, too, is good 
only as a proximate description of the body. The 
house ts not alive like its inmates ; but the body is 
alive as well as the soul ; and only so far as the body 
is alive do we know anything of the soul ; so that so 
far as both are known as living, they are known only 
as having or being the one same common life. The 
same remark, in substance, belongs to the analogy 
between the body and a tool, or implement, an image 
much in use by Bishop Foster. Tools are not alive, 
and they do not have feelings as part of our own con- 
sciousness, like our animate body. If we use an 
animal as a tool, its life is not our life like the life of 
our body. 

In short, the body and spirit are a living, conscious 
unity. The body feels ; that is, it is conscious, for all 
feeling is consciousness, though it may be of a low 
order, as it may also be of a high order, according 
to the rank of the feeling. Therefore, to say that the 



INTRODUCTION. 9 

body is beastly and idiotic is altogether too sweeping 
and inconsiderate. It is so sometimes; and in all such 
cases it is also the same with the spirit so far as it is 
known to us. 

This also is inconsistent with the further allegation 
that all body is devoid of power or force, as Bishop 
Foster often affirms. If it is powerless, why stigmatize 
it as beastly or idiotic ? Surely beasts and idiots have 
some power, and often considerable. All beastliness 
implies strong tendencies in certain directions, re- 
quiring much power to control and restrain them. 
The powerless cannot be anything of that kind. It 
must have power of some kind and degree to be 
beastly. It is no exercise of power to resist and con- 
trol that which has no power to oppose it. 

Now if, as Bishop Foster often affirms as one of 
the primary articles of his metaphysics, all matter is 
utterly powerless, it follows that all the power of evil 
or beastly impulses, desires or action, is only and 
wholly of the spirit. This, therefore, strikes a fatal 
blow at his own position. The body ought to be 
dropped, he argues, to be raised no more, because it 
is beastly and corruptible and perverse, which is im- 
possible, because powerless — for good or evil, if really 
powerless. If powerless, all evil (as well as good) 
is of the spirit, and there is nothing gained (or lost) 
by dropping the body. It is not worth a word of dis- 
cussion or remark. 

If powder of any kind or degree belongs to matter, 
it may be a good power, or capable of being used for 
good forever. This conception of it is the only one 
consistent with the infinite perfection of its Creator. 



td INTRODUCTION. 

Nothing is more absurd than to suppose an infinite 
creative fiat for the production of what is absolutely 
void of all force, so that it can do nothing, nor suffer 
anything, nor be the means or occasion of anything. 
Such a thing so-called would be equal to nothing. It 
cannot be used as a tool, for a forceless implement is 
worthless. The steel chisel must have force to cut 
into the granite ; as the prow of the colliding ship 
must have some little force to cut the other ship in 
twain. The powerless is utterly incapable of all utility. 
It is the qualityless — equal to nothing. 

However, the good bishop may take which horn he 
prefers. If powerless, it cannot be evil, and all evil is 
of the spirit, and nothing is gained by dropping the 
body; and if forceful, its force as God's creature must 
be susceptible of enduring good. 

Body is not absolutely contrasted with spirit, its 
opposite in every particular, as some expound. It 
is the sense form of spirit, the counterpart and ex- 
pression of the supersensible spirit ; and both are 
apparently made for immortal union, judging from 
both Scripture and reason — body in its present form 
for the spirit in its present stage of development; 
body in its nobler, spiritual rank for the spirit in its 
glorified estate — all of which is well and clearly 
unfolded in this little book. 

The style of the work is animated; its temper kind; 
its spirit earnest and Christian. It cannot fail to com- 
mand attention and excite thought, and it will con- 
tribute toward definite conception on the great subject 
on which it treats. 

" METHODIST." 



PREFACE 



Rev. Randolph S. Foster, D.D., LL.D., one of 
the Bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church, was 
born A. D. 1820. He was converted at the early age 
of thirteen under his own preaching. At seventeen 
he entered the work of the Christian ministry in the 
Methodist Episcopal Church. At the age of twenty- 
seven he wrote a masterly work on " Objections to Cal- 
vinism," which immediately lifted him into the notice 
of the church. Since then until now he has been very 
prominent in his church, filling her most important 
pulpits and places of power. From 1857 to i860 he 
was President of the Northwestern University, Evan- 
ston, 111. From 1868 to 1873 he was Professor of 
Systematic Theology in the Drew Theological Sem- 
inary ; and after the death of Dr. McClintock he be- 
came its president. At the General Conference of 
1872, held in Brooklyn, New York, he was elected 
Bishop in the Methodist Episcopal Church. His prin- 
cipal writings up to this date are " Objections to Cal- 
vinism," " Christian Purity," "Beyond the Grave" 
and " Centenary Thoughts," besides some lectures, let- 
ters and addresses which from time to time have been 



12 PREFACE. 

published. The work with which this volume deals is 
" Beyond the Grave," which was published in 1879 by 
the Methodst Book Concern, New York and Cincin- 
nati. 

The book was published six years after he was 
elected to the Episcopacy, nearly ten years ago, and 
some have said to the author of this volume, why 
notice the book now since it has been before the public 
so long? My answer is because, 1st, it is still before 
the public and published by our Book Concern. 2d, 
because it has never been thoroughly and plainly ex- 
posed ; and, 3d, because it is a very dangerous book, 
and until lately I have not been in position to answer 
it, and hence it was not laid upon me as a duty ; but 
now that I see its error and danger and feel my duty, 
I can see no reason for allowing it to go on further in 
its destructive work, simply because it is ten years old 
and the church has failed to suppress it. 

Ten years in the life of a book is but a moment and 
of no concern as to my reply; if it were a hundred 
years, my answers would be the same, if the circum- 
stances were the same. I hasten the work beyond my 
desire because Bishop Foster is soon to go hence, and 
then it would seem unkind or less manly to answer 
him, and his heresy would crystalize around his sacred 
memory and be more dangerous than ever. My time 
has been so much engaged in the pastorate that I have 
not been able to give much thought to the mere literary 
form of my subject, and here must beg the indulgence 
of my readers. Let me say that I wish to emphasize 
most deeply, that I love Bishop Foster and acknowl- 



PREFACE. 1 3 

edge my indebtedness to him more than to any living 
man. When I entered Drew Theological Seminary, 
in 1869, September, I found him with Drs. McClin- 
tock, Nadal, Strong and Prof. Buttz, all that heart 
could wish. From then till now I have never ceased 
to love him, and while I may seem unkind in my criti- 
cisms, it is not so. He has fallen into 'an error and 
when he sees it, he will be the first to thank me for 
my humble efforts to shield the church and the world 
from harm. May the richest blessings of heaven fall 
upon him in the afternoon of life. 

I am deeply impressed with the great task that I 
have voluntarily taken upon myself; but I enter upon 
it, as on every important act of my life thus far, with a 
deep conviction of oughtness that I am unable to ban- 
ish. After long and earnest prayer I am conscious of 
an imperative duty. I can do no other. God help 
me. 

" Beyond the Grave," I am compelled to believe, is 
one of the most dangerous books written in the nine- 
teenth century. It is not written by the hand of an 
enemy. It is not written with the design to do harm. 
It is not a coarse, blatant heresy. But it is the work 
of a master in the arts of sophistical reasoning, after 
having embraced a subtle rationalism that is hardly 
known to himself. A rationalism that is more injuri- 
ous than naked infidelity possibly could be. " Beyond 
the Grave" is rationalism boiled down and sweetened 
into a syrup, or sugar coated, so that it is taken along 
with wholesome food undetected, except by great an- 
alysis, like alcohol in patent medicines. Hence the 



14 PREFACE. 

great danger; overdosing would work its own ruin. 
But as malaria, though insidious, breaks down the sys- 
tem, so this rationalistic, insidious heresy must work 
havoc, unless it is counter-worked. I hope under 
God at least to call the doctor's attention to this ma- 
larial poison. 

" Beyond the Grave" teaches as a fundamental truth 
that, " man is a spirit." This is only a half truth, and 
having adopted this as truth, he is led into all the er- 
rors that anyone would naturally come with a false 
foundation. Once accept this as true, and the conclu- 
sions of " Beyond the Grave " must be accepted. Start- 
ing with this false premise, " Beyond the Grave " never 
stops until it traces out the natural conclusion, which 
is of necessity as false as the premise itself. Hence 
" Beyond the Grave " is a deadly heresy, touching the 
fundamental questions of the origin of death and the 
resurrection from the dead. 

If " Beyond the Grave" is not heretical, then our 
whole theology is inconsistent. I claim that it is false 
and destructive. Our fundamental doctrines are in 
danger. 

I know the author is a great and a good man, hence 
the danger. If he were not, he could not do the 
damage that he now can. These qualities must be 
possessed before he is able to do much harm. 

In 1886 a great epidemic of typhoid fever broke out 
in the beautiful town of Plymouth, on the banks of the 
Susquehanna, and thousands were affected, until the 
whole town was a hospital. Hundreds died. Those 
who drank from the wells were not affected, those 



PREFACE. 1 5 

from the hydrants' supply were. After months of un- 
told agony it was discovered that one man, only one, 
had died of the fever miles up the stream and the re- 
fuse had been thrown on the icy and snowy banks of 
the stream and hence the death. 

The water supply was from a pure stream or the 
pgople of Plymouth had not drank its waters. The 
typhoid germs must come from above or they would 
not have taken them. They must be very insidious 
or they would have been detected ; so our author 
stands at the fountain head and pours into a pure 
stream an insidious heresy, and the outcome must be 
death. 

I know the author, I love him. I do not impeach 
his integrity or his intelligence. God forbid. But such 
is the frailty of man that the same may be said of 
many great but mistaken men; e.g., Origen, Calvin, 
Luther, Toplady, &c. It is not necessary to impeach 
their integrity or intelligence to say they were greatly 
mistaken. 

I don't suppose the man that died, or his nurse, 
many miles away from Plymouth, were demons or 
fools, so let us divest ourselves of any and all unchar- 
itable judgment, and remember that truth alone is to 
be sought. 

Bishop Hurst has well said, (History of Rational- 
ism, page 2), "The reason why skepticism has wrought 
such fearful ravages at various stages in the career of 
the church has been the tardiness of the church in 
watching the sure and steady approach;" also, on page 
587 he very truthfully says, "The true way to meet 



l6 PREFACE. 

the writings of skeptics in the church is by calm re- 
plies to their charges, and by immediate ecclesiastical 
action." 

John Wesley wisely says, "The Methodists must 
take heed to their doctrine, their experience, their 
practice, and their discipline," and yet nearly a decade 
has passed since "Beyond the Grave" was published 
and still no ecclesiastical action has been taken, al- 
though some of the most important doctrines have 
been attacked by one of our ablest preachers, educa- 
tors and Bishops in such language as the following: 
" Man is a spirit." " Not simply that there are these 
two parts to man — an organism of earth and an in- 
dwelling spirit — but that the deeper truth, the very 
essence of his manhood is that he is a spirit" " We 
consign the quickly decaying form to the grave. We 
know that it soon moulders to dust. There is not a 
single sign that it will ever germinate or return to life. 
There is every indication that it never will. To believe 
that it ever will is impossible." "However it may 
awaken surprise, truth demands that we should make 
the confession that we do not know that death does 
not end all . . . where he is or that he is at all is 
absolutely unknown to us." " If the theory that death 
is the result of sin involves the counter idea that ab- 
sence of sin would have insured the absence of death, 
the theory would have to be abandoned ; we can 
scarcely conceive of an authority that could have ren- 
dered it credible." "Thus the fashion, habits and ne- 
cessities of the structure built by life, proclaim death 
to be normal and primitive. It is born of creation, 



PREFACE. 17 

not of retribution. It is God's offspring direct, not a 
penal device. It exists in the bosom of sinless, not 
sinning, nature." 

Is this truth? then our Methodist fathers had not 
the truth. Is this truth? then orthodoxy has become 
heterodoxy. I say it is not true, and " Beyond the 
Grave" assails the very foundations of our Holy Chris- 
tianity; and yet because its author is a great man, an 
honored Bishop, the church manifests the same tardi- 
ness as it always has done. I love Bishop Foster and 
all the rest of our Bishops, but I love the church 
more, and no reverence for any man can compel me 
to be quiet while the truth arid the Methodist Church 
suffer. 

Our author is an adept in argument whether true 
or sophistical, and he has sown the seeds of heresy 
deftly, and covered them artfully and with a tender- 
ness born of love, and yet by applying the rigid laws 
of logical truth, human and divine, he must stand 
convicted at the bar of an unbiased judgment. If 
he has the truth, we all want to know it. I for one 
don't care to believe in a fallacy, no matter how old or 
how great the authority, but I do not believe in any 
man dictating to the whole Methodist Church what it 
shall believe. We have a body of divinity carefully 
formulated and handed down to us from our fathers ; 
and if I understand our position, no man, be he never 
so great, has the authority to change or modify those 
doctrines ; and one of the prescribed functions of a 
Bishop in his ordination vows is to " Be ready with 
faithful diligence to banish and drive away all erro- 



1 8 PREFACE. 

nious and strange doctrines contrary to God's word, 
and both privately and openly to call upon and en- 
courage others to the same." Can any one doubt that 
our author has violated that part of his ordination 
vows ? Don't we all know that the above quotations 
from "Beyond the Grave" are contrary to the stand- 
ard teachings of Methodism ? If these are not erro- 
nious and strange doctrines, then Methodism is er- 
ronious and strange. If " Beyond the Grave" is 
according to God's Word, then Methodism is contrary 
to God's Word. Will any one impeach the intelli- 
gence of our author by saying that he did not know 
that he was teaching doctrines that were erronious 
and strange as compared with Methodist standards ? 
Will any one admit that he had the right, legal or 
moral, to stand at the fountain head of his church 
and instead of "with faithful diligence banish and 
drive away erronious and strange doctrines," promul- 
gate them from press and pulpit, both "privately and 
publicly." If one Bishop has a right to thus use his 
position to undermine the doctrines of the resurrec- 
tion of our bodies, another Bishop has the right to 
assert his peculiar ideas of infant salvation or of the 
Trinity; and alas! how soon will Methodism be like 
Unitarianism, unknown and unknowable. I believe in 
freedom, liberty ; but not license. The word of God 
is not bound. I believe in an intelligent faith that can 
stand the light of a free, full discussion. But when 
that full, free discussion, after years, has formulated a 
creed to which we all subscribe, I protest that no man, 
after we have elevated him to the highest position in 



PREFACE. 19 

the gift of the church, has a right to use that position 
to undermine the faith of those who elevated him. 
Clothed with the dignity and power of his high office, 
standing on the vantage ground far above all oppo- 
nents, in a position for life, O, who can tell the im- 
mense harm that may be done ! O, who would not 
tremble to send out through all the lines of thought a 
book like our author's, clothed with all the authority 
of the imprint of the Methodist Book Concern, by the 
greatly honored theologian and great preacher, occu- 
pying the highest office in the gift of two millions ot 
Methodists, and that book written upon the great 
theme " Beyond the Grave," and upon these great 
questions introducing doctrines that are contrary, not 
only to the Methodist standards, but are contrary to 
the orthodox standards of the Christian Church gener- 
ally. In keeping with this estimate, an editorial in the 
New York " Christian Advocate," May 3, 1888, says : 
" Where they appear and whenever they speak they 
are considered representatives of the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church, and the height they attain fixes the 
estimate of the denomination in the communities 
where they live and where they preside in Conferences. 
More than thirty thousand persons, at a low estimate, 
many of them consisting of the cream of other de- 
nominations, who would rarely or never hear Metho- 
dist pastors, listen to the Bishops of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church as they hold their Conferences in a 
hundred different cities and towns every year. These 
form their opinions of Methodism from those who are 
reasonably supposed to exhibit its best types of spirit, 



20 PREFACE. 

matter, and manner ; and around the world, whenever 
in the presence of a minister or a society of the Metho- 
dist Episcopal Church, they are not beyond their 
jurisdiction. If, then, the General Conference of the 
Methodst Episcopal Church had nothing, to do but to 
elect Bishops, it wou d have a work unsurpassed in 
importance by any similar act, except that of the 
Romanists when they elect the Pope." 

I say, all hail to any better interpretation that can be 
brought out by the increasing light of the nineteenth 
century. Turn on the light of any and all new dis- 
coveries in the intellectual advancements of the race. 
The pine-knot, the candle-dip, answered our fathers ; 
but we have the greater light of the sun lamp and of 
electric light. Let there be light in every department. 
Light will not harm the solid truth of God, although 
it set fire to the drapery. Oh, for a flood of light ! 
The more light the easier to see the wrecks of effete 
systers hung about it. Let it burn; it will only 
reveal more clearly the truth. Fire does not harm the 
gold; it only burns u) the dross. Let the giants 
wrestle ! Let the swords clash ! Let the storms howl 
around Sinai's hoary brow, and around Calvary's rent 
summit ! Open Joseph's new tomb. Come see the 
place where the Lord lay. Handle me and see that I 
am not a spirit. Truth alone will stand ; error will 
fall. Let our author shed light upon Bible interpreta- 
tion; but do not allow him to blow out the light. " If 
there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not 
risen?" " For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ 
raised ?" Let any, yea, all, help clear away the moss 



PREFACE. 21 

that may have gathered on the rocky foundations of 
God's immutable truth. Yea, let it be polished as a 
precious stone, but for conscience sake let us not join 
with the infidel and rationalist to remove the founda- 
tion, or else "what will the righteous do?" I hail 
with joy Dr. Curry's attempt to set eschatology in a 
clearer light, but when he says, " The future has no 
horizon ;" that " The Old Testament abounds in 10,000 
old wives' fables," I say, hold on. Our enemies can 
abound in mere assertions. Don't rob us of the truth. 
Give us light upon the truth. I welcome our author's 
aid when he would clear the grand old doctrine of 
the resurrection from any rubbish that may have 
gathered about it; but when he, by hundreds of pages, 
would argue from a false premise that man is a spirit, 
pure and simple, and that his body is no part of him, 
and leave our old bodies forever in the grave, I cry, 
avaunt ! 

That our author voices a sentimentalism that is 
abroad in the Christian Church on the doctrine of the 
resurrection of the dead, I have no doubt. In fact I 
fear that the doctrine is almost superceded by an 
esthetical teaching concerning the departed soul that 
makes the resurrection of the body of very little im- 
portance. A sermon on the subject is of very rare 
occurrence. The Apostles went about preaching Jesus 
and the resurrection, but we go preaching Jesus and 
the spirit's departure into glory. A prominent preacher 
of our Conference said to me : " I preach that to be 
absent from the body is to be present with the Lord 
in bliss and ineffable glory. And I know but little 



2± PREFACE. 

about the resurrection of the body and care less.'* 
It may be that I am an old fossil, but I lament and 
bemoan any such teaching. I know it is not Script- 
ural. While the spirit absent from the body is with 
the Lord, yet it is only in the spirit and can only wait 
for the resurrection of its old companion to be glori- 
fied. " Waiting for the adoption ; to-wit, the redemp- 
tion of our body." 

Jesus before death we know ; Jesus after the resur- 
rection we know; but of the spirit of Jesus during death 
we know nothing. " Into thy hands I commend my 
spirit," and those lips are sealed in death, as your friend's 
and mine. Not one word comes from the depths pro- 
found, and the disciples' hopes were blasted. Love 
embalmed the body ; love wept and watched that 
bruised and dead form. And it was not until the third 
day that those lips spoke and hope revived. And by 
the resurrection of the dead body of Jesus the world 
has hope, not by a metaphysical deduction. The 
resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is the fact 
on which we base our hope of immortality. Plato, 
thou reasonest well; but thou hadst no fulcrum. Jesus 
Christ has brought life and immortality to light by the 
resurrection from the dead. Now, for us to reverse 
this order, and to turn away from this fact, which must 
forever remain as the chief ground of our hope of future 
life, and to turn to the few isolated passages of the 
Scriptures that inferentially touch upon the condition 
of the spirit between death and the resurrection, and 
to force from them an immediate fullness independent 
of the resurrection of the body that is satisfactory, 



PREFACE. 23 

without the resurrection of the body, is unwise and 
unscriptural. I am free to admit that the longing of 
the Christian for immediate fellowship and glory is the 
great inspirer of this teaching. Our whole nature 
would cry with Peter, Why cannot I go now? But 
sentiment will not do to build a doctrinal system upon. 
This longing for immediate glory in all its fullness is 
at the bottom of Spiritualism and Swedenborgianism. 
And to this same longing we may trace the latter-day 
sentimentalism about man and spirit and intermediate 
state nonsense. 

Here is the animus of the author of " Beyond the 
Grave:" Mistaking this lower current of sentimental- 
ism for the truth, this ignis fatuus for the true light, he 
enters into the discussion with his whole soul, and this 
frothy sentimentalism is about to be solidified into the 
doctrines of the greatest church on earth. I sympa- 
thize with this longing. Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, 
dust to dust, fell with a heavy thud upon my heart as 
in the cold December we laid the precious dust away 
and the preacher's words fell with a lifeless meaning, 
"looking for the general resurrection at the last 
day," and until I turned to Jesus who said to Martha, 
under similar circumstances (after eliciting the answer, 
I know he may rise in the resurrection at the last day), 
I am the resurrection and the life. Then cheer and 
sunshine came into my soul, and ever since I have 
found in Jesus Christ my resurrection and my life. I 
have not to look away, away, away to the thousands 
and tens of thousands of years, but apply to my own 
heart " I am the resurrection," and say with John, 



24 PREFACE. ^ 

" blessed is he that hath part in the first resurrection;" 
and only the sinners and unholy need to look into the 
millenniums of the future for their resurrection. This 
sentimentalism may do well enough where it is simply 
floating in the air, but when it resolves itself into a set 
system like Spiritualism, Swedenborgianism or " Man is 
a spirit," then it shows its inconsistency with the Bible 
and orthodoxy as well as sound reasoning. Hence I 
claim " Beyond the Grave " is only to be analyzed and 
shorn of its authority, to fall to pieces as the hetero- 
doxies of the past. To this I set my heart by the 
help of God. 

" Beyond the Grave " is a hard book to analyze, 
because of its lack of continuity. It is a book of 
lectures rather than a set treatise upon a given subject. 
It is evidently a collection of the author's teachings 
for a long time upon different occasions, and upon 
different subjects, culled out and made to harmonize 
as best possible, with two long appendixes, into one 
volume, and named after it was born " Beyond the 
Grave." If he had christened it "Above the Grave" 
it would have been better, as he never allows "this 
man" to enter the grave, and the "animal" never 
gets out. I shall endeavor to follow my author in his 
lecture style a little, but hope to so systematize his 
teachings as to bring them face to face with truth, and 
then my work will be done and his inconsistency will 
be evident to all. 



BISHOP FOSTERS HERESY, 



CHAPTER I. 

" IS MAN A. SPIRIT ? " 



Our author says (page 22, "Beyond the Grave"): 
"The pivotal and crucial point of the discussion is 
the question, whether man is a spiritual being or not;" 
and on page 26, " The proposition asserts, not simply 
that there are two parts to man — an organism of earth 
and an indwelling spirit— but that the deepest truth, 
the very essence of his manhood, is that he is a spirit. 
Properly speaking, he is a spiritual being, and the 
earthly form is external and merely instrumental to 
him. That is what we are required to prove." 

Then follows page after page of argument to show 
this proposition to be true, viz: " Man is a spirit;" and 
on page 48 he says : " If man is not a spirit, con- 
sciousness is a cheat." I wish to leave no uncertainty 
here. This is indeed "the crucial point." Here is the 
germ of his whole heresy. Admit this and you must 
admit his conclusions. Our author realizes this and 



26 bishop Foster's heresy. 

makes his stand here. This is the citadel of his whole 
system, hence, he says, page 78, "You see I am 
making a great deal — everything — of the fact that I 
am not my body. That is everything to me." Page 
32, "The task which I now undertake, is to show that 
the essential man is an invisible quantity, which never 
comes within the range of sense-cognition or observa- 
tion, and is detected by sense only as it comes to mani- 
festation in some visible form of activity. The being 
himself always remaining invisible ; man as a material 
being is simply an instrumental arrangement or organ- 
ism for the use of the deeper man, which is a spiritual 
being, and is separate and distinct from the material 
organization, as separate and distinct as from any other 
tools which he uses and employs." . . . He is as 
really distinct from the hand as he is from the saw, or 
hammer, or brush, or pen. Page 50, "Am I not con- 
scious that I am different from the instrument I 
am commanding and using?" "So I bow to my pres- 
ent machine and say, you are about the sixth or 
seventh that I have had for my use, and the others 
have vanished away." Page 29, " The form (t. e. 9 the 
body) is wholly destitute of power of any kind .... 
It would not continue to exist as a form for any con- 
siderable time if left to itself; it must be fed and 
clothed, and doctored vigilantly or it would rapidly 
run to ruin ; it is idiotic and beastly ; it neither sees, 
nor hears, nor tastes; it is purely an instrument and 
servant. The spirit, on the other hand, is a proprietor 
and master." Page 32, "We must be able, therefore, 
to show that what you see is not the man, or abandon 



"is man a spirit?" 27 

all idea of his immortality on rational grounds." 
Page 56, u We deem what has now been said sufficient 
to establish the point in hand: man is a spirit!' 

I feel sure our author has left no uncertainty here 
as to his teaching. Man is not a materio-spiritual 
being. "The proposition asserts, not simply that 
there are two parts to man, but that he is a spirit ; the 
body is not the man, neither is it any part of the man, 
no more than any other machine he uses." Is this 
true ? Is man a spirit in this sense ? That our author 
teaches it none can doubt, but does that make it true. 
He says, page 28, " Nothing is more certain than that 
they are two — completely and utterly dissimilar; and 
the person is the one and not the other. They have 
absolutely nothing in common." 

To quote further is unnecessary, since 187 pages, all 
of the work except 82 pages, are in the same line. If 
we were to quote it all we could find nothing different 
from this. He closes his first chapter, page 107, as fol- 
lows : " We have found, upon grounds of reason, that 
man is a dual being — a spirit shrined in a body ; that 
in the complex, the spirit is pre-eminent — par excel- 
lence, the man ; that the body is inferior and instru- 
mental — a servant pro tempore ; that, while it is a 
needed and useful adjunct for a time, it is in its nature 
perishable — incapable of permanence, " &c. 

The second chapter is in the same line. Page 147, 
he says : " In the change (i. e. } death) we lose our 
earthly bodies." Page 148, " Perhaps, when let out of 
the body." Page 158, "The resurrection, therefore, 
is deliverance from the gross body, and resumption of 



28 bishop Foster's heresy. 

life without it in the spiritual world." Page 161, 
" Ignorance and imagination invest the material organ- 
ism with ethical qualities, but fact and reason teach us 
that it is only a definite quantity of oxygen and other 
gases, fashioned in a certain way. The affection the 
soul has for the body, and the consequent disappoint- 
ment it would feel at having it displaced by another, 
is a fond imagination — delusion. Let us cease to be 
the sport of dreams and the slave of prejudice. ,, 

In closing this chapter he says, pages 182-187," This 
body of earthly matter I am perfectly willing to put 
off, that I may put on one that will answer the higher 
ends of my existence better. Beyond the grave we 
have found that the spirit is immortal, and that it will 
be clothed upon with a new form when the old one 
perishes. It is revealed that they are spirits, and this 
furnishes some clue. Freed from physical drudgery, 
they live as spirits. To my mind the future is a vast 
community of spirits. Thou, Gabriel, that standest 
nearest the throne, noblest of the archangelic retinue, 
far on I shall stand where thou standest now." 

I think the point is clearly taken by our author. 
This is the burden of the whole work. He defends 
his proposition throughout, " man is a spirit." " The 
proposition asserts not simply that there are these two 
parts to man, an organism of earth and an indwelling 
spirit, but that he is a spirit" 

Now the question of this chapter becomes patent, 
"Is man a spirit?" Our author says he is; I say he is 
not. Let me remind you that we are here and now 
dealing with the foundation principles of our manhood 



"is man a spirit?" 29 

as well as those of our theology. The apparent dif- 
ference may be very slight, but remember, that truth 
and error in the beginning lie side by side, with not 
room to lay a hair between them ; but in the end or 
outcome they are infinitely far apart and the gulf is 
impassable. The cannon may be deflected but a hair's 
breadth from the mark, but the ball flies at an infinitely 
farther distance. Two mushrooms grow side by side, 
so nearly alike that only an experienced person can 
distinguish them, and yet one is a nutritious diet, the 
other a deadly poison. 

The materialist says man is an animal ; our author 
says man is a spirit. The truth lies between these two 
errors. " God created man out of the dust of the 
ground," and breathed into his nostrils the breath of 
life, and man became a living being. Not a spirit, not 
an animal, but a " man. " 

If our author is correct, I have no need to go fur- 
ther. If man is a spirit and the body is only a clay 
instrument that this spirit-man uses as no part of him- 
self — idiotic, beastly, dumb as the horse he drives — I 
surrender. If the body is only a clay instrument like 
a clay pipe, and when broken another is substituted, 
and one after another is substituted until the sixth, 
and seventh, or tenth supplies the other's place; if the 
spirit is the man and is no more a part of the body 
than he is of his pen, or horse, or pipe, then, I ask, 
must we not reconstruct our theology ? Can any man 
see any use of talking about the redemption of our 
bodies or the resurrection of the dead. Our author 
seems to admit the full force of his premise. On page 



30 BISHOP FOSTER S HERESY. 

23 he says, " We consign the quickly decaying form 
to the grave ; we know that it soon moulders to dust ; 
there is not a single sign that it will ever germinate 
or return to life ; there is every indication that it never 
will; to believe that it will is impossible." The begin- 
ning and end of the whole matter is contained in this, 
" The body shall return to the dust as it was, and the 
spirit to God that gave it." Let us, then, in the name 
of conscience as well as reason with our author, 
" cease to be the sport of dreams and the slave of pre- 
judice." 

Thus we see the premise and its legitimate con- 
clusion. "Man is a spirit." Hence he never dies ; 
he lives on ; death does not harm him. It in fact 
relieves him of his body. The body machine, his 
worn-out, oft-changed instrument, goes back to the 
dust, moulders and never germinates. We therefore 
commit his body to the ground ; earth to earth, ashes 
to ashes, dust to dust ; not looking for the general 
resurrection at the last day, or any other day, for it 
was only a clog, a beastly, idiotic, dumb shell in 
which the spirit found a shelter, and now he is gone 
to find a better one more adapted to his exalted 
sphere. This cast-off thing was good enough to 
commence in, but he has outgrown this shell and 
must needs find a better. 

Can there be any doubt about the correctness of 
this? Read page 253, " That at first bodies are indis- 
pensable, there can be no reasonable doubt, but at 
death it has finished its mission." Page 256: "The 
animal, which served it well, can serve it no longer; 



"is man a spirit?" 31 

will have accomplished its mediatorial purpose ; will 
have led the immortal to the door of his heaven, into 
which it cannot go ; and being no further useful, but 
a clog and shackle, will be left at the gate." I ask 
again : Is there any evasion of this conclusion ? Is 
this not conclusive evidence that there is no resur- 
rection of the body ? Will any sophistry nullify this 
clear, plain teaching ? Can words be plainer ? O 
eternal sh des ! Can it be possible ? 

I admit that our author tries to evade this plain, 
inevitable conclusion by sophistically reasoning about 
a transmigration of the spirit at death into another 
body, which he chooses to call a resurrection. But I 
am sure it will not deceive any, except they want to 
be deceived. Page 151 be says: "Nothing is more 
certain than that Jesus taught, as one of his cardinal 
truths, the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead." 
Disbelief of that truth is as indisputable heresy as 
disbelief in the divine mission of Jesus. " I believe 
in the resurrection of the dead has been the language 
of faith in all the Christian ages," etc. It must be 
very interesting to see how a resurrection is taught by 
one who teaches that the spirit is immortal, and the 
body mortal forever. But our author is sufficient for 
even this. Page 181: "The resurrection state is the 
change of the earthly for the heavenly ; is the putting 
off of flesh and blood, and the putting on of the spirit- 
ual bqdy. The resurrection is the standing again after 
death. The body of the resurrection is the body of 
which the spirit is clothed for its celestial life. The 
organizing life principle is identical. It begins in the 



32 bishop Foster's heresy. 

natural, and weaves its curious integuments of dust 
for earthly use ; it weaves the new robes for the de- 
parting soul." 

Page 147 : " In the change we lose our earthly- 
bodies, and all conditions of life we lived in them." 
Page 224 : " The soul wakes up in the future world, 
or passes into it as it passes from one city to another, 
with as little interruption of its faculties. In its trans- 
fer, however, it loses the services of the physical 
senses. They have finished their function, and dis- 
appear. How this affects its relations to material 
affairs we do not know. Possibly it interrupts com- 
merce with this life entirely; and on many accounts it 
is desirable that it should. But if there is the loss of 
the gross physical sense, we may infer that there is the 
acquisition of a higher order of sensorium, by which 
it becomes related to the spiritual realm." Page 242 : 
"When the human body- is dissolved, the immaterial 
principle (the spirit, the man,) by which it was ani- 
mated, continues to think and act, either in a state of 
separation from all body, or in some material vehicle 
to which it is ultimately united, and which goes off 
with it at death." 

Is this in any proper sense a resurrection ? Is it a 
resurrection for the spirit to pass from the body up to 
God ? Do we understand Ecclesiastes to teach the 
doctrine of the resurrection when it says " the body 
shall return to the dust as it was, and the spirit to the 
God who gave it?" Does the hermit crab have a 
resurrection when it passes from one winkle shell to 
another ? 



"is man a spirit?" 33 

Since our author bows to his present machine and 
says, page 50: " You are about the sixth or seventh 
that I have had for my use, and the others have 
vanished away," would he have us believe that he has 
had six or seven resurrections ? 

I find Transmigration, "From one sensorium into 
another." 

I find Swedenborgianism, " The spirit is clothed 
upon with a new form when the old one perishes." 

" The soul passes as easily from one body to another 
as we pass from one city to another; one is left behind 
for the other. The organizing life principle — the 
spirit, the man — is uninterrupted. He, the spirit, the 
man, does not die — the body dies. The resurrection 
is the passing of the man out of the shell into another 
new shell when the old one is broken. Is this living 
on of the spirit and the remaining dead of the body 
a resurrection ? 

Query: Why should this angel, this master and 
proprietor, need the help of another sensorium now 
that it is relieved of its old burden ; and if it needs 
one in the next world, why should our author object to 
St. Paul's idea, that the old body shall be changed, and 
adapted to the changed conditions and nature of the 
spirit. " He shall change our vile bodies and make 
them like unto his own glorious body. In a moment, 
in the twinkling of an eye," as quick as the electrician 
sets the dead wire into the brilliant light by a touch, 
and a city is illuminated, so the trump of God shall 
change us who are alive into the shining representa- 
tion of our resurrected Lord. 



34 bishop Foster's heresy. 

Can any one be deceived by this sophistry ! If this 
change described by the Bishop be a resurrection, I 
ask, of what ? Of the spirit ? Was the spirit dead ? 
But he says: "The organizing life principle is unin- 
terrupted." Of the body? But he says, "it will never 
rise again. To believe that it ever will is impossible." 
Jesus said to the disciples, "I am not a spirit; handle 
me and see." He said to John, "I am he that was 
dead, and behold I am alive forevermore." If- there 
is any resurrection in this transmigration I confess I 
fail to comprehend it. If this is a resurrection, it cer- 
tainly takes place at death and deserves to be placed 
with the heresy of Hymenaeus and Philetus, of whom 
St. Paul says, "their words eat as doth a canker." 

Is man a spirit? Our author claims that he is. 
"We have established the point in hand: man is a 
spirit," page 56. I say, No; emphatically, eternally, 
No. 



CHAPTER II. 

IS MAN A SPIRIT? 

"Not an organism of earth and an indwelling spirit, but he 
is a spirit.' ' 

Man is not a spirit in any such sense as our author 
predicates, but he is a spiritual being, i. e., man is a 
materio-spiritual being. Man is a trinity in unity. A 
body of mysteriously wrought material nature, fear- 
fully and wonderfully made, fully associating man 
with the material universe, from the least atom up to 
the greatest sun that blazes and burns around the 
great throne of God ; the center of the material uni- 
verse upon which is built the city of the New Jeru- 
salem, which indeed hath foundation, "whose builder 
and maker is God." 

A spirit, breathed into this wonderful material body 
from the living, eternal Father of Spirits. "God 
created man out of the dust of the ground." The 
creative act of God only acted upon the material 
nature of man. " God breathed into this created man 
the breath of life, and man became a living being." 
Man is created out of the dust. God put into this 
material nature His spirit and then man became a 
living being. Homo — man — human being. This body 



36 bishop Foster's heresy. 

and spirit became the unique trinity in action. " God 
created man out of the dust of the ground." Not an 
animal. Our author's idea that "man's body is as 
purely an animal as the beast of the forest" is not true. 
God c reated the beast of the forest and all creeping 
things before He created man, and after He had pro- 
nounced His work well done, then the holy trinity in 
council said: "Let us make man in our image;" not 
in the image of a monkey or baboon. "And the 
Lord God created man from the dust of the ground." 
Now, because He created man out of the dust, does 
that argue that he is an animal — beastly, idiotic, &c. 
If we could see that unfallen man fresh from the 
Creator's hands, would we, could we, say : God created 
man from the material universe, but he is only an 
animal, beastly, idiotic, devilish, dying, corruptible? 
Was man fresh from the Creator's hand what our 
author would make him? I think not; or He would 
not have breathed into him the breath of life and 
made him a living, eternal being. No, we see man a 
fallen being, and the effect upon the body is more 
noticeable and startling than upon the spirit or soul, 
because more patent to our comprehension, and the 
full effect upon body, soul and spirit cannot be fully 
seen until all are writhing in the pit of culminated 
guilt after the judgment. 

To say that this body is as it was when it came 
from the Creators moulding hand, is as great a mis- 
take as to say the spirit and soul of the sinner in all 
their devilishness are as they came from God. To call 
man an animal, even the highest animal, a monkey 



IS MAN A SPIRIT? 37 

with a soul, is an insult to both man and God. God 
created man (not a monkey or other animal) from the 
dust of the ground — " God breathed into his nostrils 
the breath of life;" not an angel, a spark of His own 
divine nature, and this divine life coalesced with the 
newly created man, and man became a living soul. A 
new, unique being, the offspring of God. " Let us 
make man in our own image, after our own likeness;" 
not an angel, but above angels, a child. Hence David 
says, " Thou hast created him a little lower than ' Elo- 
him' (God), and crowned him with glory and honor." 
So far as we are concerned, man is the greatest being 
in the universe, and represents the Father God, as no 
other being can, and we know comparatively little of 
God outside of man; and but for sin he would have 
been worthy of our highest ideal of God, even without 
the manifestation of God in Jesus Christ, our God- 
man. In the face of a child the parent beholds his 
own image as nowhere else, although he looks into all 
human contrivances and inventions. The engine, the 
steamship, the telegraph or telephone are wonderful 
inventions, but only in the face of his child he finds 
his own wonderful image reflected. So let our minds 
sweep the universe of material things, and not in roll- 
ing seas or revolving spheres, in shining suns or twink- 
ling stars, in blooming flower or singing bird can we 
discover the image of the Divine ; but in man, God's 
child. And while we admit the wonderful nature of the 
spirit, yet we must not forget that God created man 
out of the dust of the ground, and in connection with 
that physical nature we only know man, and can only 



38 bishop Foster's heresy. 

know him ; and in this connection we only know God. 
What we may be in another world, what other intel- 
ligences fill the universe ; how we shall see Him who 
sits in light inapproachable, is revealed to us only 
through the mediation of Jesus Christ and his word. 
No philosophy can delve these depths ; no spiritualistic 
speculation can unfold these mysteries. Jesus said, 
" No man hath seen God at any time ; the only be- 
gotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he 
hath declared him." — John 1:18. This same Jesus 
said, " I am the resurrection and the life." " No man 
cometh unto the Father but by me." " Go to my 
brethren and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father 
and your Father ; and to my God and to your God." 
Again he said, " Is it not written in your law, I said 
ye are God's ? If he called them God's unto whom 
the word of God came ; and the Scripture cannot be 
broken." St. Paul says, " Know ye not that we shall 
judge angels ?" 

Man is not an animal with an angel ensconced as a 
foreign substance, or a being like our author's hermit 
crab ; but a Man, a sublime Unity in Trinity, one 
unique Being. The spirit, that backlying somewhat 
that is almost as incomatable as the Father of Spirits ; 
as unknowable as life itself; that inbreathed essence 
of Deity; the moving mainspring hidden away in 
the secret citadel of man's inner consciousness; so 
etherial, spiritual, that its hew birth is the hidden 
secret of our holy Christianity. " Ye must be born 
again." What ! This big body enter the second time 
into the mother's womb and be born ? No. But thy 



IS MAN A SPIRIT? 39 

spirit, thy inner consciousness, thy mainspring of life 
and being, must be changed, converted, born of the 
spirit of God. It is a great secret, like the hidden 
wind; but it is the mainspring of your being; and 
from this hidden spring must flow all action. Good 
or bad, as this spirit is, must be the action of the soul, 
or mind, and also the body. It is not that which 
goeth into the body that defileth the man, but that 
which proceedeth from this hidden fountain. 

It is not that which cometh into the mind or soul 
that defileth the man ; for who can control his 
thoughts ? This entereth one ear and out at the 
other, as the body throws off its pollution by the 
draught. But it is the evil that springs from the 
fountain ; the deep, backlying spirit that sends its 
polluted stream through the body and soul. And 
when this hidden spirit is born again, then the foun- 
tain, being pure, sends its pure stream throughout the 
entire being. Now, will it do to say that this un- 
known and almost unknowable nature, this backlying 
spirit, is an angel ? and that all we know, and can 
know of it through the mind and body, is only an 
animal ? If we do say this, we may as well stop, for 
that angel refuses to let us know anything about him 
only as we study him from his mind and body. He 
has never been seen, heard, felt, or known to any being 
that we know outside the body and mind. True, John 
was in the spirit, but he was in the body also. Paul 
was lifted up by a mysterious inspiration, but he was 
in the body. Stephen saw hea.ven opened and Jesus 



40 BISHOP FOSTERS HERESY. 

standing at the right hand of God, but he was not yet 
dead. 

Munsell lays down this sensible proposition: " How- 
ever it may be with man in some other world of exist- 
ence, here on earth we know and can know mind or 
spirit only as it is manifested in and through physical 
organization. And any attempt, therefore, to deter- 
mine, a priori, its nature and attributes would be purely 
hypothetical. Moreover, a science of pure spirit, were 
it possible to man, would be wholly of speculative 
value." — MunseWs Psychology ', p. 4. 

Our author himself admits this to be true on page 
67 : " If it (/. e. y the soul) were taken out of the body, 
whether it might carry on its processes better than it 
does in the body, is a point which is not at all settled, 
and we have no means of settling it except upon gen- 
eral inference." 

Now, I claim that this inbreathed spirit coming into 
the man became a part and parcel of his nature. Not 
two beings, an animal with an angel, as a parasite 
living upon another. Not two distinct beings, but the 
spirit so coalescing in the material that man rises in 
all the dignity of his grand nature, One. 

St. Paul prayed, I Thess. 5 : 23 : "I pray God your 
whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blame- 
less unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." 
Upon this Rev. Dr. Adam Clark comments as fol- 
lows : 

" The creature called man is a compound being, 
consisting : 



IS MAN A SPIRIT? 4 1 

" I. Of a Body — soma — An organized system 
formed, by the creative energy of God, out of the 
dust of the earth; compounded of bones, muscles 
and nerves ; of arteries, veins and a variety of other 
vessels in which blood and other fluids circulate. 

" II. Of a Soul — psukee — Which is the seat of the 
different affections and passions, such as love, hatred, 
anger, etc., with sensations, appetites, and propensities 
of different kinds. 

"III. Of a Spirit — pnuma — The immortal principle; 
the source of life to the body and soul, without which 
the animal functions cannot be performed, how per- 
fect soever the bodily organs may be, . . . etc. 
The Apostle prays that this compound being in all 
its parts, powers and faculties, which he terms ho- 
lokleeron ; this whole, comprehending all parts, 
everything that constitutes man and manhood, may 
be sanctified and preserved blameless till the coming 
of Christ. Hence we learn, ist, The body, soul and 
spirit are debased and polluted by sin ; 2d, That each 
is capable of being sanctified, consecrated in all its 
powers to God and made holy ; 3d, That the whole 
man is to be preserved to the coming of Christ. That 
body, soul and spirit may be then glorified forever 
with him." 

How does this great Methodist commentator com- 
pare with our author? Or rather how does our 
author compare with Dr. Clark and St. Paul ? The 
creature called man is a compound being, body, soul 
and spirit. I pray God your whole spirit, soul and 
body be preserved blameless. That body, soul and 



42 bishop Foster's heresy. 

spirit may be glorified forever with Christ. Our 
author says the spirit is the angel to be glorified, and 
the body is to rise no more. Which will we accept ? 

McClintock and Strong have an able article in which 
they say : " The Scriptures teach a trichotomy. The 
body is the first, and the last ; the spirit quickeneth by 
the energy of the soul and is the bond which unites the 
soul and body ; the agent which combines them into 
a single substance, so that even death is unable to 
effect more than a partial or temporary separation." 
Thus the older and the later Methodist authorities 
agree ; and this agreement is with the Bible, and with 
our outer and inner consciousness. 

That man has a material nature, none but an en- 
thusiast or mystic would doubt. To deny it is to 
deny one of the most sensible facts of being. Every 
experience and observation show it. The Bible de- 
clares that " God created man from the dust of the 
earth." The Berkeleyan idealist and our author are 
among the strange phenomena of our race. 

That man has a spiritual nature, none but an un- 
accountable materialism would deny. To prove this 
from observation is more difficult, because the spirit 
hides itself so wondrously. The only way is to drive 
him back step by step until he is laid bare upon the 
last rock of his own hidden inner consciousness : I 
exist ; I am ; I live ; I am conscious. Life can only 
come from life. Matter, as matter, is dead. That 
inner power must be spirit. 

"Anthropomorphism has taken stand in its last 
fortress— man himself. But science closely invests 



IS MAN A SPIRIT? 43 

the walls ; and philosophers gird themselves for battle 
upon the last and greatest of all speculative problems. 
Does human nature possess any free, volitional, or 
truly Anthropomorphic element; or is it only the 
cunningest of all nature's clocks ? Some, among 
whom I count myself, think that the battle will for- 
ever remain a drawn one, and that, for all practical 
purposes, this result is as good as Anthropomorphism 
winning the day." — Huxley Lay Sermons, &c. y p. i6j. 

He may say that all life is spirit. We can but 
answer, we do not know. God breathed into man, 
and he became a living being. 

The Bible believer will have no such difficulty. 
God created man out of the dust of the earth and 
breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man 
became a living being. Sin entered and ruined the 
spirit ; the body finally returned to dust — became dis- 
organized. Jesus came and brought us back to life, 
soul, body and spirit. " As in Adam we all die, so in 
Christ shall all be made alive," the spirit first and 
afterward the body. " The body of Jesus died upon 
the cross and was buried; the spirit returned to God 
the Father. On the third day His spirit returned, and 
the body arose, and his mind or soul was active. He 
walked and talked with men forty days, and after lead- 
ing them out to Mount Olivet, He in all the entirety of 
His nature body, soul and spirit, ascended to the right 
hand of God, where he ever liveth, not as an angel or 
spirit — "lam not a spirit" — I am not an angel — "I 
am he that was dead and am alive again, and behold I 



44 BISHOP FOSTERS HERESY. 

am alive forevermore." And John saw him in his 
glorified humanity. 

Our author, on page 34, says : " I mean to affirm 
that anterior to any organism, and necessary thereto, 
and distinct from the organism, there must be a 
thought factor." And our author, from pages 34 to 
47, shows very clearly that all the material universe is 
but the work of this invisible thought factor. The 
thinker, God, is back of all this organism of matter 
which, I suppose, every Bible believer will admit. We 
are not materialists. He says, page 47 :•- " If there be 
any deduction of reason that may be relied on as cer- 
tain, it is that the bottom and eternal fact of the uni- 
verse is a living, intelligent, free, personal spirit;" to 
which all who believe the Bible and have learned their 
catechism, say amen. 

Now our author leaps to the conclusion that man 
also is a spirit, and the body is no part of him, as God 
is a spirit, and the universe is no part of God. Page 
47 : " The proof is not less strong that man is a 
spirit." Here we join issue with our author. Man is 
not God ! God has no body or parts ! To say the 
universe of organized matter is God's body, through 
which he learns objectivity, would be strange philo- 
sophy. To claim any analogy to, or to draw any such 
conclusion from the argument concerning God's spirit 
nature, and apply it to man as a materio-spiritual 
being, is far fetched. Man may be such a being in 
some future state, but that he is not now is too patent 
to need proof, and all appeals to consciousness, ex- 



IS MAN A SPIRIT? 45 

perience, or observation, or the Bible, will be in vain ; 
and with Munsell I say, " That any attempt, therefore, 
to determine, a priori, its nature and attributes, would 
be purely hypothetical." Also with that eminent and 
wonderful philosopher, Dr. Thomas Dick, who says, 
(page 300 in Christian Philosopher): "For how- 
ever much we may talk about purely spiritual ideas, 
it is quite evident, from the nature of things, and the 
very constitution of man, that we can have no ideas at 
all without the intervention of sensible objects." 

I am sorry that our author should have attempted 
the impossible, and apparently staked everything upon 
the issue; for in this same connection (page 48) he 
declares, "If man is not a spirit, consciousness is a 
cheat." " Man is invisible." If consciousness is a 
cheat, who is responsible? But is consciousness a 
cheat ? Who knows ? What is the office of con- 
sciousness ? Does it not relate entirely to my present 
state, and condition of my mind, and am I conscious 
that I am a spirit and that this body is no part of me ? 
On the other hand, am I not conscious that it is a part 
of me? Is not its hurt my hurt? Have I ever had 
one conscious moment or experience out of the body ? 
Has our author, or any other being known to us, had 
a consciousness out of the body? Is not every con- 
scious thought or feeling so closely connected with 
the body that it is impossible to bisect them ? Can 
we be conscious of the past experience and knowl- 
edge without the mind, the memory? Can the ego, 
the self, the consciousness, be conscious without that 
mysterious sheet upon which are written the past 



46 bishop Foster's heresy. 

records? Our author leads us through a most beau- 
tiful experience (page 50). In the early morning he 
is awakened by "the cooing of the dove, and is car- 
ried back over fifty years ; he becomes a boy again, 
the father's home, the mother's kiss," &c, which is 
good rhetoric, but false logic. He says : " By a strange 
law of association, starting with the early memory, I 
lived life over again." 

Now, what is memory ? Is memory spirit ? He 
says on the following page, "That which abides 
is a spirit. Bodies change and die, only spirit re- 
mains." Again on page 53, "The pictures are no 
photographs on material plates, piled up somewhere 
— not impressions on nerve surfaces. There is not 
a particle of materiality about the pictures, the halls 
where they are hung, or the beholder." 

Our author seems entirely innocent of the most 
patent facts in our mysterious nature. It may be so 
in some future world; we may be entirely independent 
of these mysterious material plates, but even a child 
knows that we are not now, and as we are now con- 
structed it is impossible to conceive such independ- 
ence of our material nature. A moment's thought 
will show us the fallacy. If these pictures are hung 
on some other wall than material, why should a little 
injury to the brain not only disfigure them, but anni- 
hilate them. A clot of blood no larger than a pin 
point, a blow on the temple, ari hour's fever, and the 
plates are shattered, and the picture gallery becomes 
a pandemonium or a blank. What of consciousness 
then? If a slight physical derangement plays such 



IS MAN A SPIRIT? 47 

havoc with our picture gallery, what would the entire 
destruction do for it? What has consciousness to 
witness to here ? How came our author to know 
these pictures were not on the material plate of the 
mind's memory? Has he or any one, save some 
Spiritist or Swedenborgian, ever been out of the body 
and away from these frail material plates ? had experi- 
mental consciousness, that enables him to say that 
they are not material but spirit ? Since it is impos- 
sible for consciousness to testify to his assertion by 
experimental knowledge, how does our author know ? 

No, consciousness no more testifies that man is a 
spirit than that he is an animal, and it is doubtful 
whether it does as much. Consciousness has refer- 
ence to our present knowledge and must testify to 
what it knows, and it can know r only what it learns in 
the bodily organism. If our author can point out 
how the consciousness knows that man is a spirit, we 
may be led to accept his theory. The Bible does not 
teach it. Human experience does not teach it. Then 
how can consciousness be expected to teach what it 
does not know. I leave it with the reader to see how 
unwise it is to base an argument for man's spirit 
nature on consciousness. Our conscious knowledge 
beginning with the I am, I think, I feel, tracing its 
way up through all forms of knowledge, may testify 
to a great many things, but it must tell us its origin, 
and in proportion as it demonstrates its verifiableness 
it becomes reliable evidence. 

The Bible teaches that we have a body, soul and 
spirit. Consciousness may do the same. Jesus teaches 



48 bishop Foster's heresy. 

that the body, soul and spirit shall live after death. 
Jesus has proved his authority to teach my con- 
sciousness, "I know him;" my soul, my inner con- 
sciousness has touched him; I shall live again; I was 
blind, I now see. Outside of the life, death and resur- 
rection of Christ, there can be no conscious knowl- 
edge that man lives beyond the grave, or that there 
will be any picture gallery when death dashes this 
material one into atoms ; and the resurrection of Jesus 
Christ has no lesson for our consciousness only as we 
apply it to the resurrection of our bodies and the 
relieving of our triune, unique humanity, and the 
glorification of the whole man "by the mighty power 
whereby he is able to subdue all things unto himself." 
Whenever we philosophize we must be careful that 
our conclusions agree with fact, either in nature or the 
Bible, or both, or else it is bad for our philosophy. 
Our author admits that the question about the soul or 
spirit's power of independence of the body is only an 
inference (page 67), and yet carries on his specula- 
tion, and affirms that "man is a spirit," while the facts 
in nature and in the Bible are contrary to his conclu- 
sions, e. g. 9 all we know of man is in connection with 
his bodily nature, and the central fact of revelation is 
the life, death, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, and with these two facts all philosophy must 
harmonize or fall to pieces like the billows dashed 
into spray upon the rock.* 

* Since writing the above we have come across an able arti- 
cle in " Christian Thought" on ' Monism," by Dr. Roberts. 
Danby, Professor in University of Texas, in which he says : 



IS MAN A SPIRIT? 49 

Now, what to me is strange for a theologian, after 
pages of speculative philosophy, he closes this chapter 
by less than a page of Bible -proof, page 57. And what 
is still more strange, every proof-text is diametrically 
opposed to his theory. Let me quote : " The theory 
of common sense, thus announced in consciousness, 
and deducible by the reason and fortified by the deep- 
est philosophy yet attained, has also the sanction of 
revelation." Now notice his quotations from reve- 
lation to prove that " man is a spirit : " 

1st. "And the Lord God formed man of the dust oi 
the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath 
of life, and man became a living soul." Our author 
here overlooks the plain statement that the creation of 
man was " out of the dust of the ground." What- 
ever he was, or became, or by whatever process, or 
power, the proof-text of our author proves that man 
was created, and that he was created out of the dust 
of the ground. There is no other creation named in 
the text. The Man is created out of the dust. The 
Man thus created out of the dust became a living 
being. No matter by what process or by what power; 
no matter what he became, this new creation from the 
dust became that being. This is no argument for our 
author's spirit-man. 

2d. Again our author adduces as a proof-text, 
" Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was ; 
and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it." 

"But consciousness is the subjective faculty. Now, no soul 
can ever know or realize by consciousness its own beginning," 
&c. See Christian Thought, February, 1888. 



50 BISHOP FOSTERS HERESY. 

What of the resurrection? O, I see; our author 
says, "The resurrection, therefore, is deliverance from 
the gross body." " The resurrection is the change of 
the earthly for the heavenly." " The body is left in 
the grave, it will never rise ; to believe that it will is 
impossible " Hence, before Jesus rose, the resurrec- 
tion took place ; the bodies of all before Jesus came, 
returned to dust, and their spirits returned to God. 
Hence man is a spirit, hence Jesus only animated his 
old body for forty days to impress the immortality 
of the spirit upon the race. The man is a spirit, and 
the resurrection is the relief of the spirit from its 
earthly clog. Page 163, our author says the " resur-. 
rection of Jesus was not a pattern, but a proof;" and 
page 165, he teaches "that Jesus had not entered 
the resurrection state during the forty days, and in- 
deed did not until he got out of sight of the disciples 
above Olivet." O, to what straits for proof-texts. 

3d. Our author quotes Christ: "And fear not them 
which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul ; 
but rather fear Him which is able to destroy both soul 
and body in hell." — Matt. 10: 28. 

Christ was here teaching the people not to fear 
death, for it would be but temporary, and it would 
be better to obey God, even though death should be 
the consequence, for if they forsook Him and died in 
their sins, both soul and body would be cast into hell. 
But it matters not what He was teaching. I fail to see 
wherein our author can claim this to prove " man is a 
spirit," for he clearly and distinctly says the soul 
and body shall be cast into hell And he uses 



IS MAN A SPIRIT? 51 

Gehenna, not Hades, the place of eternal punishment. 
And this is in keeping with the whole tenor of Christ's 
teaching concerning the resurrection of the body, both 
of the good and bad. Their bodies, as well as their 
souls, are to live and enjoy, or endure the results of 
their earthly life. Now, we have examined these three 
proof-texts of our author, and can anyone for a mo- 
ment see wherein they answer the purpose for which 
he uses them. The first makes man from the dust. 
The second leaves the resurrection entirely out. The 
third leaves man, soul and body suffering together in 
the last place known to a lost sinner in Scripture. I 
cannot understand our author. In the face of these 
plain texts he exclaims : " It is the spirit that was 
created." I say the text says God created man out 
of the dust. If it is the spirit that was created, it was 
created out of the dust. There is no creation of spirit 
mentioned. Again, he says : " It is the spirit for 
whom atonement is made." Paul says : " He is the 
redeemer of our bodies." If the blood of the body of 
Jesus redeems, I should think the human body, to 
which the body of Jesus is in all points like, worthy of 
redemption. Heb. 10 : 5-30 : 

5. Wherefore, when He cometh into the world, He 
saith, sacrifice and offering thou wouldst not, but a 
body hast thou prepared me. 

9. Then said He, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. 
He taketh away the first, that He may establish the 
second. 



52 BISHOP FOSTERS HERESY. 

10. By the which will we are sanctified through the 
offering of the body of Jesus Christ, once/or all. 

12. But this man, after He had offered one sacrifice 
for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God. 

14. For by one offering He hath perfected forever 
them that are sanctified. 

19. Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter 
into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, 

20. By a new and living way, which He hath con- 
secrated for us, through the vail, that is to say, His 
flesh, 

22. Let us draw near with a true heart in full as- 
surance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an 
evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure 
water. 

29. Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, 
shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under 
foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of 
the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy 
thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace? 

[Let us beware how we despise the body,] 

30. For we know him that hath said, Vengeance 
belongeth unto me. 

"We wait," saith St. Paul, " the redemption of our 
bodies." Our author says : " If the Bible is divine, 
the doctrine is true " — " man is a spirit." 

I say : If the Bible is divine, the doctrine is not 
true — man is not a spirit, but a materio-spiritual 
being. 



IS MAN A SPIRIT? 53 

I do not think it necessary to follow this line of 
thought further here. In the chapter on "Inconsist- 
encies " I will notice* somewhat more, but for the 
present let us turn our attention to our author's more 
palpable heresy, as related to more practical theology. 



CHAPTER III. 

bishop Foster's heresy in the light of the resur- 
rection AS TAUGHT BY THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 
FROM THE APOSTLES UNTIL NOW. 

In this chapter I shall show that our author's pre- 
mise, " Man is a spirit," and its outcome, the body 
never rises from the dead, is contrary to the teaching 
of the Christian Church from the beginning until now. 
I shall not quote exhaustively at all, but shall quote 
from those authors that are acknowledged to be au- 
thoritative, and will be as conclusive as if I gave a 
whole volume on this chapter, for I claim that there is 
but one voice in the teaching of the church upon the 
subject. Not but there are wide disagreements in non- 
essentials. One holds to a literalism that another re- 
pudiates. Another holds that the spiritual change that 
comes over or upon the material nature is so great, 
that the body will be fitted for the highest state 
possible. One holds that every atom of the old body 
will be preserved ; another that from a germ of the old 
body will come a new one, and thus they have their 
various theories of the how and the what. But that 
there will be a resurrection of the dead, material 
nature, and that the spirit shall re-enter the old body 



IN THE LIGHT OF THE RESURRECTION. 55 

at the resurrection all changed and glorified, there is 
but one voice in the Christian Church. 

Now I propose to show that our author is outside 
the pale of orthodoxy, because he teaches that man is 
a spirit, and consequently, needs no physical body 
after this one is dead. We have no objection to the 
teaching of any in regard to the most glorious change 
possible to conceive being wrought in the old body. 
Make it as glorious and thorougly spiritualized as 
Christ's own glorious body. Leave all the corrupt- 
ible, non-essential elements you please in the dust 
from whence it came, but from that dead material 
body we must have our future material body. " God 
gives to each seed its own body." Make it as different 
as a diet of milk alone would differ from a diet of beel 
and vegetables; as different as the Esquimaux from 
the fairest Caucasian ; as different as the blackest Ethi- 
opian to the fairest rosy-cheeked white damsel ; yea, 
let the change be as great as from the sin-cursed 
drunkard to the bright-eyed babe; or from the fallen, 
earthly Adamic nature to the most etherial, Christ-like 
Moses and Elijah on Mount Hermon ; or the prophet 
that John mistook for an angel, I have no objection. 
In fact, I suppose it has not entered into our hearts to 
conceive the glory that awaits this old body in the 
glory of the resurrection morn. This creeping, fallen, 
sin-cursed body shall be changed, and made like unto 
his own glorious body; and as seen by St. Paul on 
the Plains of Damascus, or St. John on the Isle of 
Patmos, it is glorious; and I suppose as the heat of the 
crucible converts the black, filthy coal into the beauti- 



56 bishop Foster's heresy. 

ful gas jets sparkling in the many colored chandeliers 
of my parlor ; or the carbon of the charcoal in the 
laboratory of nature is converted into the brilliant dia- 
mond, so the crucible of death and the grave shall be 
used by Divine Power to change this corruption into 
incorruption. My poor body shall be changed, and 
my spirit shall be clothed upon with this body of 
electricity, and with wings of light I shall be prepared 
for my glorious mansion in realms of light and glory. 
I shall shine like Him whose face was like the sun, 
and whose feet were like polished brass, " as the stars 
forever and ever." I am willing for all this, but I am 
not willing to leave this 'old friend in the grave. I am 
not willing for it to lead me to the gate of my im- 
mortal home, and there to say, you can serve me no 
further. You have been a faithful servant, but I 
despise you now, you old beastly, idiotic thing. No, 
no; I protest, I'll not treat an old friend so. Here is 
the heresy of our author to which I object, page 256 : 
" The animal (i. e. y the body) which served it (7. e. f the 
spirit) well, can serve it no longer; will have accom- 
plished its mediatorial purpose ; will have led the im- 
mortal to the door of heaven, into which it cannot go, 
and being no further useful, but a clog and shackle, 
will be left at the grave." If I need a body here and 
now, I will need one there and then. If I do need 
one I want my old one changed, and the Bible 
teaches that I shall have it, and the Christian Church 
teaches the resurrection of the old dead body, from the 
Apostles till now, and Bishop Foster's heresy is 
plainly shown in the comparison. 



IN THE LIGHT OF THE RESURRECTION. 57 

John Wesley says (page 513, vol. 2, Sermons): 
"When we have obtained the resurrection unto life, 
our todies will be spiritualized — purified and refined 
from their earthly grossness. Then they will be fit 
instruments for the soul in all its divine and heavenly 
employment. We shall not be weary of singing 
praises to God through infinite ages." 

Here, John Wesley says, our bodies will be refined 
from their grossness; there they will be fit, &c. 

Our author says: "The animal can serve it no 
longer and will be left at the grave." Need I point 
out the impassable gulf between these two authors? 
One teaches the resurrection, the other does not. 

Again, John Wes ey teaches (on page 507, vol. 2, 
Sermons) : " And we may observe that the Gentiles 
were most displeased with this article of the Christian 
faith ; it was one of the last things the heathens be- 
lieved, and it is to this day the chief objection to 
Christianity. [Is this the reason our author fails as yet 
to accept it?] How are the dead raised up? With 
what body do they come ? In my discourse on these 
words I shall show three things : 

" I. I shall show, That the resurrection of the self- 
same body that died and was buried, contains nothing 
in it incredible or impossible; but before I do this, it 
may be proper to mention some of the reasons upon 
which this article of our faith is built. And, 

" 1st. The plain notion of a resurrection requires 
that the self-same body that died should rise again. 
Nothing can be said to be raised again but that very 
body that died. If God gives to our souls at the last 



58 bishop Foster's heresy. 

day a new body, this cannot be called the resurrection 
of our body; because the word plainly implies the 
fresh production of what was before.*' 

Let me here quote from our author (pages 182 and 
183) so that he may face John Wesley: "The body 
of the resurrection is the body of which the spirit is 
clothed for its celestial life; the organizing life prin- 
ciple is uninterrupted and identical. It begins in the 
natural and weaves its curious integuments of dust 
for earthy use. It weaves the new robes for the 
departing soul. It will be clothed upon with a new 
form when the old one perishes. Give us back the 
person with a new body. This body of earthly mat- 
ter I am perfectly willing to put off, that I may put on 
one that will answer the higher end of my existence 
better. Beyond the grave we have found that the 
spirit is immortal, and that it will be clothed upon 
with a new form when the old one perishes." 

Who can look upon these two quotations face to 
face and not see the impassable gulf between them. 
John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, has the 
restoration of the same old body. Our author has a 
new body to take the place of the old one, after the 
old one dies ; and this he has the audacity to call a 
resurrection. Mr. Wesley says again: 

" 2d. There are many places of Scripture that plainly 
declare it. St. Paul, in the 53d verse of this chapter, 
tells us that this corruptible 'must put on incorruption, 
and this mortal must put on immortality. Now, by 
this mortal and this corruptible can only be meant 
that body which we carry about with us, and shall 



IN THE LIGHT OF THE RESURRECTION. 59 

one day lay down in the dust" "The mention which 
the Scriptures make of the places where the dead 
shall rise, further shows that the same body which 
died shall rise." "And the very phrase of sleep and 
awake implies that when we rise again from the dead 
our bodies will be as much the same as they are 
when we awake from sleep." " To this we need add 
only that of St. Paul : The Lord shall change this 
vile body that it may be fashioned like unto his 
glorious body." "Now this vile body can be no other 
than that with which we are now clothed, which must 
be restored to life again." Now read his closing exhor- 
tation : "Let this especially fortify us against the fear 
of death ; it is now disarmed, and can do us no hurt. 
It divides us, indeed, from this body awhile, but it is 
only that we may receive it again more glorious. As 
God, therefore, said to Jacob : ' Fear not to go down 
into Egypt, for I will go down with thee, and will 
surely bring thee up again,' so I may say to all who 
are born of God, fear not to go down into the grave ; 
lay down your heads in the dust ; for God will cer- 
tainly bring you up again, and that in a much more 
glorious manner. Only ' be ye steadfast and im- 
movable, always abounding in the work of the 
Lord/ and then let death prevail over and pull down 
this house of clay, since God hath undertaken to 
rear it up again, infinitely more beautiful, strong and 
useful." 

Now let our author face this grand teaching of our 
founder with his rationalistic nonsense, page 31 : 
" There are no facts which point to a return to life of 



60 bishop Foster's heresy. 

the body which is destroyed." Our author repudiates 
the fact of Christ's resurrection as a pattern of our 
resurrection. " There is not a single sign that the 
body will ever germinate or return to life. There is 
every indication that it never will. To believe that it 
will on ax\y facts which appear, or any rational ground 
within our reach, is impossible." Page 23. 

Here are the quotations looking each other in the 
face ? Do they look alike ? Is there any resemblance 
between them ? I confess my inability to recognize 
any resemblance. If our author is orthodox, Mr. 
Wesley is a heretic, on this point, at least, for they are 
exactly contrary to each other. 

Now, let us turn to Richard Watson, that wonderful 
theologian of the early Methodist Church, who early 
set Methodist doctrines in clear, terse language, like 
luscious fruit in baskets of polished gold, and see how 
our author's teaching opposes this great standard 
author of his own church. Mr. Watson says (page 
460, vol. 2, Institutes): "It cannot fail to strike every 
impartial reader of the New Testament, that the doc- 
trine of the resurrection is there taught without any 
nice distinctions. It is always exhibited as a miracu- 
lous work ; and represents the same body which is 
laid in the grave, as the subject of this change from 
death unto life by the power of Christ. Thus our 
Lord was raised in the §ame body in which he died, 
and his resurrection is constantly held forth as the 
model of ours." 

Here we have plain, definite statements, unmistak- 
able, unequivocal. Our author can very easily be 



IN THE LIGHT OF THE RESURRECTION. 6 1 

compared to them, ist. "The resurrection represents 
the same body which is laid in the grave, as the sub- 
ject of this change from death unto life." Bishop 
Foster (page 179) says: "The contrast is between the 
body a man has before death, and the body he has 
after death. They are not the same, but different." 
Page 181 : "The resurrection is the change of the 
earthly for the heavenly." "The body of the resur- 
rection is the body with which the spirit is clothed for 
its celestial life. The spirit weaves the new (body) 
robes for the departing soul." Page 23 : " We consign 
the quickly decaying form (body) to the grave." 
" There is not a single sign .that it will ever return to 
life." " To believe that it will is impossible." Page 
183 : "Beyond the grave we have found that the spirit 
will be clothed upon with a new form {i. e. y body) 
when the old one perishes;" also, page 31, "There are 
no facts which point to a return to life of the body 
which is destroyed." 

Mr. Watson says, 2d. "Thus our Lord was raised 
in the same body in which he died, and his resurrec- 
tion is constantly held forth as the model of ours." 
Our author flatly contradicts this, page 162, "The 
assumption that the resurrection of Christ is a pattern 
of our resurrection, is wholly without foundation, and 
is certainly not true, and is in no sense a pattern;" 
further, "The fact, then, that He returned to life in 
the body that was crucified and buried, cannot be 
taken as a proof that we are so to be raised. There is 
proof positive that we will not." 

I have set these two authors face to face ; you have 



62 bishop Foster's heresy. 

your choice. I can only choose for myself. There is 
one thing certain, ye cannot serve God and Mammon, 
or two Masters. If ye choose to follow Mr. Wesley 
and Mr. Watson, ye must be against Bishop Foster. 
If ye follow our author, ye cannot hold to these 
Methodist authorities ; and if we are to repudiate 
them, let us do it like our author on page 161 : "The 
affection the soul has for the body, and the conse- 
quent disappointment it would feel at having it dis- 
placed by another, is a fond imagination — a delusion. 
Let us cease to be the sport of dreams and the slave 
of prejudice." O, ye great leaders of Methodism! O 
thou, John Wesley and Richard Watson, what 
children ye were to be the sport of dreams and slaves 
of prejudice! Why hold to a doctrine that has stood 
in the way of the acceptance of Christ and of our 
holy Christianity. O, ye idolatrous worshipers of an 
image, "fashioned in a certain way out of oxygen 
and other gases!" Let us cease to be the sport of 
childish dreams, and rise to the philosophic height 
of our author, and look down with disdain upon this 
beastly, idiotic gas machine, and cease to say, looking 
for the general resurrection at the last day, and 
saying, Who shall change our vile bodies and fashion 
them like unto His own glorious body by the mighty 
power, whereby He is able to subdue all things unto 
Himself. 

Now, the question arises, Who is orthodox? not 
Who is right? Our author may be right, or Mr. Wes- 
ley may be right; that does not enter into the queston* 
Our next chapter will examine that question in the 



IN THE LIGHT OF THE RESURRECTION. 63 

light of the Bible. Chapter III raises the question of 
Bishop Foster's heresy in the light of the resurrec- 
tion, as taught by the Christian Church from the 
Apostles until now. We have found that our author 
is diametrically opposite to Messrs. Wesley and Wat- 
son. Now, which is orthodox? I claim, that Messrs. 
Wesley and Watson, our theologian and our founder, 
are orthodox, and it seems to me that every loyal 
Methodist must say, amen. 

Article III of our articles of religion, declares that 
Christ did truly rise again from the dead, and took 
again his body, with all things appertaining to the 
perfection of man's nature, wherewith he ascended 
into heaven, and there sitteth until he returns to 
judge all men at the last day. 

Bishop Foster says, page 163 : " The re-living of 
Christ was not the putting on of immortality, and had 
none of the marks of resurrection, as it is to be of the 
saints." " Of the glorified body we know nothing, ex- 
cept that it is not of the fashion of his earthly body." 
The article of religion above quoted teaches that Christ 
did rise, and that he took his body and did ascend into 
heaven with that body. And if I see the truth, the 
assumption of our author makes the forty days, in- 
cluding the ascension, the greatest deception and 
fraud ever perpetrated upon our race. If Jesus did 
not take again this body with all things appertaining 
to the perfection of man's nature, and if he did not as- 
cend with that body, as the whole drift of the Scrip- 
ture teaches, as well as Article III, then to believe in 
the future life is impossible ; and with Justin Martyr, 



6\ bishop Foster's heresy. 

A. D. 165, I ask: "Why did he (t. e. f Christ) rise in 
the flesh in which he suffered, uriless to show. the 
resurrection of the flesh." 

Adam Clark says : " The creature called man is a 
compound being, consisting, 1st, of a body (soma); 2d, 
of a soul (psukee); 3d, of a spirit (pnuma) ; and that 
the whole man is to be preserved to the coming of 
Christ, that body, soul and spirit, may be then glori- 
fied forever with him." 

Again, Dr. Clark says, (Notes on I Cor. 15 : 44): 
" It is raised a spiritual body." " One perfect in all its 
parts." ... u As the seed which is sown in the earth 
rots, and out of the germ contained in it God in his 
providence produces a root, stalk, leaves, ear and a 
great, numerical increase of grains, is it not likely 
that God, out of some essential parts of the body that 
now is y will produce the resurrection body, and so 
completely preserve the individuality of every human 
being, as he does of every grain, giving to each its 
own body (verse 38), so that as surely as the grain 
of wheat shall produce wheat after it is cast into the 
earth, corrupts and dies, so surely shall our bodies 
produce the same bodies as to their essential indi- 
viduality ? As the germination of seeds is produced 
by His wisdom and power, so shall the pure and perfect 
human body be in the resurrection." 

How beautiful and clear is this from the greatest, 
broadest, exigetical scholar Methodism has ever 
produced, compared with whom our modern critics 
and reviewers are unworthy a name. How different 
our author's transmigration theory : " The soul wakes 



IN THE LIGHT OF THE RESURRECTION. 6$ 

up in the future world. In its transfer, however, it 
loses the services of the physical senses. They 
have finished their function and disappear. The body 
which served it well can serve it no longer, and being 
no further useful, but a clog and shackle, will be left 
at the gate." How does this look in the face of Dr. 
Clark, John Wesley and Richard Watson ? Need I 
quote further ? If our author believes not John Wesley, 
Richard Watson and Adam Clark, neither would he 
believe if one arose from the dead and said to him, 
" Reach hither thy hand and thrust it into my side ; " 
yea, " handle me and see ; a spirit hath not flesh and 
bones as ye see me have." 

But to show further that our author is heterodox, I 
quote from McClintock and Strong (article " Resur- 
rection"). Rev. Dr. John McClintock and Dr. James 
Strong were professors in Drew Theological Semi- 
nary, cotemporary with our author, and the above 
article was published the same year as " Beyond the 
Grave," (1879); and they apparently had in mind this 
very heterodoxy of their co-laborer in the faculty : 
" We conclude, therefore, that there is no Scriptural, 
consistent or intelligible view, except the one com- 
monly entertained by Christians on this subject." 
This is strong. No Scriptural, consistent, intelligible ! 
Now we quote further to see what is this view com- 
monly entertained by Christians and called orthodox ; 
and this definition would seem to have been written 
with "Beyond the* Grave " open before them, viz: 
" That the pure and immaterial soul alone survives the 
dissolution of the body, and that at the last day 



66 bishop Foster's heresy. 

Almighty power will clothe this afresh with a cor- 
poreal frame suitable to its enlarged and completely- 
developed faculties, and with it glorified by some such 
inscrutable change as took place in our Saviour's body 
at the transfiguration, and as still characterized it 
preternaturally beheld by Saul on his way to Damas- 
cus." Now compare this closely with John Wesley 
(Sermons, vol. 2, p. 5 13) : " When we have obtained the 
resurrection unto life, our bodies will be spiritualized, 
purified, and refined from their earthly grossness. 
Then they will be fit instruments for the soul in all 
its divine and heavenly employments." Here we see 
John Wesley, and McClintock and Strong face to face, 
and there is not a blush ; and although a hundred years 
stand between them, yet their every feature harmon- 
izes into one beautiful orthodoxy. " Not, as Plato, 
Origen, Swedenborg and our author would claim, 
some subtle and continuous tertium quid that 
emerged from the decaying substance and recon- 
structs a new physical home for itself." — McClintock 
and Strong. Now compare our author, page 182: 
"The resurrection is the standing again after death. 
The body of the resurrection is the body with which 
the spirit is clothed for its celestial life. The organ- 
izing life principle is uninterrupted and identical. It 
begins in the natural, and weaves its curious integu- 
ments of dust for earthly use. It weaves the new 
robes for the departing soul." Again, page 147 : 
" In the change we lose our earthly bodies. We are 
born into new conditions, with a psychical body of 
some kind, which as imperceptibly develops while 



IN THE LIGHT OF THE RESURRECTION. 67 

we live as the body of the child unconsciously grew 
in the womb." Again, page 242 : " When the human 
body is dissolved, the immaterial principle by which it 
was animated continues to think and act either in a 
state of separation from all body, or in some material 
vehicle to which it is ultimately united, and which 
goes off with it at death." Also, page 224 : " But if 
there is the loss (at death) of the gross, physical sense, 
we may infer there is the acquisition of a higher order 
of sensorium, by which it becomes related to the 
spiritual realm." Also, page 183: " The spirit is im- 
mortal, and it will be clothed upon with a new form 
when the old one perishes." 

Here we see Drs. McClintock and Strong's " subtle 
and continuous tertium quid that emerged from the 
decaying substance," &c, reconstructing its new 
home, palmed off as orthodoxy. This is semi- 
Swedenborgianism, with a mixture of transmigra- 
tionism, and a little rationalism thrown in. In other 
words, it is heterodoxy; and it is as clear as a sun- 
beam that Bishop Foster, in the face of these Metho- 
dist authors, is a heretic. I might quote at great 
length from Methodist authors, from our origin until 
to-day, and they would utter but one sound ; but it 
is not necessary that I should quote further. We 
are all willing to accept John Wesley, Richard Watson 
and Adam Clark as authority, and we all know that 
our author is at variance with them. He knows it 
and I suppose would not deny that he does not be- 
lieve in the doctrine of the resurrection as taught by 
them. Hence, he exhorts : " Let us cease to be the 



68 bishop Foster's heresy. 

sport of dreams and slaves of prejudice." Page 
161. 

We are all quite sure that Methodism is orthodox 
upon this fundamental doctrine. Will any one doubt 
or insinuate that John Wesley, Richard Watson and 
Adam Clark voice the sentiments of the great Meth- 
odist Church ? I think not. I am sure that the great 
body of Methodist thinkers and writers accept these 
standards upon this great fundamental doctrine of the 
resurrection. 

Is there any doubt in the mind of any that our 
author disagrees with them ? I think not. Who is 
orthodox, Methodism or Bishop Foster? I say 
Methodism is orthodox ; and can prove it, were it ne- 
cessary, by quotations from every evangelical writer 
upon this subject from the Apostle Paul until now. 
Who is heretical, Methodism or Bishop Foster? I 
say our author is, and can prove it by quotations from 
the writings of heretics from Origen until Sweden- 
borg. 

Methodism joins in the chorus of the Universal 
Church from the Apostles until now : " I believe in 
the resurrection of the body." If you will consult 
SchafPs li Creeds of Christendom," you will find this 
to be the united voice of the whole Christian world : 
" I believe in the resurrection of the body." 

In the beginning, down through the 1800 years 
until to-day, this voices the' sentiment of the whole 
church upon this subject with an unanimity hardly 
equaled on any other subject. Eastern or Western, 
Greek or Latin, St. Paul, Augustine, Luther, Calvin 



IN THE LIGHT OF THE RESURRECTION. 69 

or Wesley, without a dissenting voice, proclaim : " I 
believe in the resurrection of the body." 

Let me begin with St. Paul : " Now if Christ be 
preached that he rose from the dead, how say some 
among you that there is no resurrection of the dead?" 
I Cor. 15: 12; verse 53 explains St. Paul as to what 
is meant by the resurrection of the dead : " This 
corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal 
must put on immortality." Not the spirit put on 
immortality, but " this mortal." Mr. Wesley says : 
" Now by this mortal and this corruptible can only 
be meant that body which we carry about with us, 
and shall one day lay down in the dust." Here we 
see St. Paul and Methodism agree. What will our 
author say to this ? 

Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, A. D. 430, says : 
" But even though the body has been ground to 
powder by some severe accident, or by the ruthlessness 
of enemies ; and though it has been so diligently scat- 
tered to the winds, or into the water, that there is no 
trace of it left, yet it shall not be beyond the Omnip- 
otence of the Creator. No, not a hair of its head 
shall perish. The flesh shall then be spiritualized, and 
subject to the spirit, but still body, not spirit ; as the 
spirit itself, when subject to the fleshy body, was 
fleshy, carnal, but still spirit, and not body flesh." — 
City of God, book 22, p. 21. 

Does this teaching of the great church father agree 
with St. Paul, John Wesley, and Methodism, or with 
Bishop Foster ? There is no room for doubt. This 
great church father but voices the sentiment of the 



u2 m 



Jo bishop poster's heresy. 

whole church down to his day. See Lactantius, 
A. D. 330; Cyprian, A. D. 258; Hippolytus, A. D., 
239; Minutius Felix, A. D. 2CO; Tertullian, A. D. 
166; Athenagoras, A. D. 117; Theophilus, Bishop 
of Antioch, A. D. 168; Justin Martyr, A. D. 165; 
Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons, A. D. 69 ; Polycarp, Ig- 
natius. I need not quote from these. Those who 
wish may consult them, and they will find that Augus- 
tine, in 430 A. D., agrees with them all in th.s article 
of the Christian faith. I cannot forbear quoting 
from Justin Martyr in order to show how clear and 
explicit the resurrection of the body was taught, and 
that you may see how baldly our author is in conflict 
with these mighty men of God and the church. He 
writes against the heathen in defense of the faith: 
" And what is most forcible of all, he raised the 
dead — why ? Was it not to show what the resurrec- 
tion should be ? How then did he raise the dead ? 
Their souls or their bodies? Manifestly both. If the 
resurrection were only spiritual, it was requisite that 
he, in raising the dead, should show the body lying 
apart by itself, and the soul lying apart by itself. 
But now he did not do so, but raised the body, con- 
firming in it the promise of life. Why did he rise in 
the flesh in which he suffered, unless to show the 
resurrection of the flesh." I feel my cheek burn to 
even write a quotation from our author in the face of 
this great church father and early martyr. Page 182, 
" This body of earthy matter I am perfectly willing to 
put off, that I may put on one that will answer the 
higher ends of my existence better." "Will be 



IN THE LIGHT OF THE RESURRECTION. J\ 

clothed upon with a new form when the old one per- 
ishes ;" also, 161, "The affection the soul has for the 
body, is a fond imagination." Page 256, "The animal 
(the body) which served it well, can serve it no 
longer; will have led the immortal (the spirit) to the 
door of heaven, into which it cannot go ; and being 
no further useful, but a clog and a shackle, will be left 
at the gate." Oh, spirits of Augustine and Justin 
Martyr, how canst thou be quiet ! 

I think to quote from a few of the great creeds of 
the Christian Church will be sufficient to show that 
Methodism, and not our author, is orthodox. The 
Heidelberg Catechism, A. D. 1563, German Reformed 
Church : Ques. " What comfort does the resurrection 
of the body afford thee? Ans. That not only my 
soul, after this life, shall be immediately taken up to 
Christ, its Head, but also that this my body, raised 
by the power of Christ, shall again be united with my 
soul and made like unto the glorious body of Christ." 
Confession of the Eastern Church, A. D. 1643: Ques. 
cxx. " What is the eleventh article of the faith? Ans. 
I look for the resurrection of the dead." This our 
author would claim to answer likewise; but the dif- 
ference is seen in the next question and answer. 
Ques. cxxi. " What does the article of faith teach ? 
Ans. It teaches positively and with perfect truth, that 
there will be a resurrection of human bodies, alike of 
the righteous and the wicked, from the death that has 
passed upon them. . . . They shall be altogether the 
same bodies with which they have lived in this world!' 



J2 BISHOP FOSTERS HERESY. 

Here again we see our author, and not Methodism, is 
heterodox. 

Our author is not the first heretic that has arisen on 
this subject; as early as 215 A. D., Titus Flavius 
Clemens, taught this same heresy, substituting Plato- 
nism, or the soul's independence of the body with its 
power to provide itself a new body when the old one 
was dead. From this Origen drank his poison that 
made him a heretic upon the same subject. All along 
the ages this same heresy may be seen cropping out, 
but until to-day it has never been able to exert 
much influence against the overwhelming and almost 
unanimous teaching of Christian men and scholars ; 
and I hope as in the past there may be enough of the 
spirit of our fathers in us to defend the old doctrine 
against the rationalizing tendencies of this age. 

Here I consent to rest the argument of our author's 
heresy in the light of the resurrection, as taught by 
the Christian Church from the Apostles. until now. I 
am entirely satisfied that no thoughtful person can 
read this chapter, and look into the authorities quoted, 
without deciding as I have ; no matter whether he 
think with me or with our author. This will be con- 
ceded, and it is all I ask. I believe this heresy to be 
an insidious poison. I believe the church is right, 
and our author wrong. I believe one of the distinctive 
and fundamental doctrines of our Holy Christianity is 
in danger. I am concerned. I am in earnest. I can- 
not be still. We have fallen on dangerous times ; the 
infidelity to be feared to-day is not coarse and blatant, 



IN THE LIGHT OF THE RESURRECTION. 73 

but a cultured, intellectual rationalism, that would do 
away with all the distinctive features of our holy reli- 
gion — a rationalistic, Unitarian, Universalistic, Swe- 
denborgian cidtus. The fall, the new birth, hell, the 
resurrection and the judgment, are all swept into the 
region of a superstitious past, to be ignored ; and we 
are urged to cease to be the sport of dreams and pre- 
judice. I am sorry and sick at heart, that in the 
Methodist Church, among our leading ministers, 
should be found defenders of such rationalizing ten- 
dencies. I am sorry that our author, one that I love 
so well, one that the church has honored and rever- 
enced so long, should be found among this list. I am 
sorry that the enemies of grand, old, sound orthodoxy 
can number in their ranks one who has such ability, 
influence and opportunity to help them and to hurt 
us. I am sorry that a Bishop of the Methodist 
Church should so far forget his great responsibility as 
to consent to allow the weight of his narre, age, piety 
and position to be subverted to so unworthy a task. 
O, Lord, deliver us from the pernicious influence of 
" Beyond the Grave/' 



CHAPTER IV.. 

bishop Foster's heresy in the light of the resur- 
rection AS TAUGHT by the holy scriptures. 

" Marvel not at this; for the hour is coming, in the 
which all that are in the graves shall hear His voice, 
and shall come forth ;" Jesus. — John 5 : 28-29. 

" We consign the quickly decaying form to the 
grave. . . . There is not a single sign that it will ever 
return to life. To believe that it will is impossible." 
— " Beyond the Grave," p. 23. 

" For the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be 
raised." — I Cor. 15 : 52. 

" For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised?" 
— I Cor. 15 : 16. 

" There are no facts which point to a return to life 
of the body which is destroyed." — -" Beyond the 
Grave," pp. 31 and 32. 

Is comment necessary? What is in the graves? 
What shall hear ? What shall come forth ? What 
dead shall be raised ? What meaneth the Lord Jesus 
Christ and St. Paul ? What shall not return to life ? 
What has no sign of returning life ? What has no 
fact that points to a return to life ? What meaneth 
our author ? 



IN THE LIGHT OF THE RESURRECTION. 75 

Can there be a shadow of doubt as to the meaning 
of either of these authors ? Here they stand face to 
face. Christ and Paul declare that the grave shall 
give up the dead, and the dead shall live. Our author 
declares : " The grave shall not give up, and that the 
dead shall not live." 

Need I say that this is appalling, for a Christian 
philosopher thus to diametrically oppose his own 
rationalism to the plain declarations of Holy Writ ? 
Some may say that our author doesn't mean to oppose 
the Master ; but I can't help what he means. I only 
show what he does, and that without a particle of 
overdrawn conclusions, and by simple and direct 
quotations, which are in the spirit of both of their 
teachings. The Scriptures declare from end to end 
by the whole trend of their teaching, as well as by 
clear, definite, positive precept, that the dead live 
again. The same body rises again. The grave shall 
give up. Our author declares again and again, posi- 
tively and clearly : " The dead body lives not again. 
The grave does not give up its prey." 

I have shown in Chapter III that I am sustained by 
the whole church in this view of Scripture teaching. 
I have shown again and again that our author opposes 
this whole teaching of revelation. Now let me further 
show our author's heresy by quoting from Scripture : 

FIRST PROPHECY. 

The first promise to our fallen, federal head : " The 
seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head." 
" For since by man came death, by man came also the 



y6 bishop Foster's heresy. 

resurrection of the dead." " For as in Adam all die, 
even so in Christ shall all be made alive." Death 
came to Adam by sin (our author to the contrary, 
notwithstanding), ist, Spiritual death ; 2d, Physical 
death, and of necessity the grave followed. Had he 
not sinned he would have lived in communion with 
God until his probation ended, and then been trans- 
lated, and death and the grave would have been un- 
known. "Now, since by man (Adam) came death, 
by man (Christ) came also the resurrection of the 
dead." 

(2) Job 19: 25-27, says: "I know that my Re- 
deemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter 
day (not the last day, as some suppose) upon the 
earth; and though after my skin worms destroy this 
body, yet in my oomibbe share {humanity, full body 
and soul) shall I see God." 

Job did not say in my flesh, as meaning a corrupt- 
ible, dying, mortal nature, but after this corruption 
takes place ; yet, through his Redeemer, he by faith 
received the real resurrection of his unique human 
nature. O, glorious faith ! Equal to my mind to that 
of Abraham, when on Mount Moriah he was enabled 
by faith in the promise of God to slay his son, re- 
ceiving him back through the resurrection from the 
ashes. 

(3) David in Psalm 16: 10: "For thou wilt not 
leave my soul in Hades, neither wilt thou suffer thy 
Holy One to see corruption." 

Let Peter, on that memorable occasion, the Pente- 
cost, speak to you of David's faith. Acts 2:25-36: 



IN THE LIGHT OF THE RESURRECTION. "]J 

" Men and brethren, let me freely speak of the patri- 
arch David, being a prophet, and knowing that God 
had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of 
his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up 
Christ to sit on his throne. He, seeing this before, 
spoke of the resurrection of Christ. This Jesus hath 
God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses. " 

St. Paul, in Acts 13:32-37, also so beautifully calls 
attention : " And we declare unto you plad tidings, 
how that the promise which was made unto the fath- 
ers, God hath fulfilled the same unto us, his children, 
in that he hath raised up Jesus again, as it is also 
written in the second Psalm. " He also refers to the 
1 6th Psalm. These inspired references by Peter and 
Paul warrant us in claiming David as teaching, with 
Job, the grand old doctrine of the resurrection of the 
body; and the resurrection of Christ on the third day 
was the fulfilled hope and promise to God's ancient 
servants, and declared to be so by St. Peter and St. 
Paul. I need only to quote a few more of the ancient 
prophecies : 

See Isa. 25:8: "He will swallow up death in vic- 
tory." 26:19: " Thy dead men shall live: together 
with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and 
sing, ye that dwell in the dust, for the earth shall cast 
out the dead." If there is any resurrection taught 
here, it is of the body that was dead and in the grave. 
Eze. 37:11-14: " O, my people, I will open your 
graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves." 
Hos. 13:14: "I will ransom them from the power of 
the grave ; I will redeem them from death ; O, death, 



y 8 bishop Foster's heresy. 

I will be thy plagues ; O, grave, I will be thy destruc- 
tion." Hos. 6:2: " After two days will he revive us ; 
in the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live 
in his sight." 

I have already quoted St. Peter and St. Paul, to 
show the interpretation of David's prophecy ; I now 
simply call attention to Christ's and St. Paul's injunc- 
tion. Christ, to the disciples, on the way to Emmaus, 
after they had told him of the disappointment at 
Christ's death and suffering, and the rumored resur- 
rection, said, Luke 24:25: "O fools, and slow of 
heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken ; 
ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and 
to enter into his glory?" St. Paul, in I Cor. 15:4: 
" He was buried, and he arose again the third day, 
according to the Scriptures." What Scriptures, if not 
the ones I have quoted. Again St. Paul says, Heb. 
11:35, when speaking of those prophets and early 
heroes : " They were tortured, not accepting deliver- 
ance; that they might obtain a better resurrection." 
But they " obtained not the promise, God having pro- 
vided that they should not be made perfect without 
us." And in harmony with this whole teaching of the 
Old Scriptures Christ prophesied : " Destroy this body 
and in three days I will raise it up." Also St. Paul 
exclaims in almost exact language with Hosea : " O 
death, where is thy sting ? O grave, where is thy 
victory." 

Enoch was translated, that he should not see 
death. Elijah was carried to heaven in a chariot of 
fire. Not only as clear prophecies of the resurrection 



IN THE LIGHT OF THE RESURRECTION. 79 

of the whole man, but as an ocular demonstration to 
the ages and dispensations in which they lived. 

Yet, in the face of these prophecies and facts, our 
author claims (p. 258 " Beyond the Grave"): "Where 
life was supreme, death holds undisputed sway. There 
is not, and never has been, an exception to this in the 
realm of terrestrial life." Also, p. 147: " In the change 
(#. e. y death) we lose our earthly bodies." 

But when we come to the New Testament, the 
glaring inconsistency and heresy of our author be- 
comes still more apparent. The Jews asked a sign. 
Jesus said : " As Jonas was three days and three 
nights in the whale's belly, so shall the Son of Man 
be three days and three nights in the heart of the 
earth." — Matt. 12:40. Again, the Jews ask a sign. 
Jesus said : " Destroy this body, and in three days I 
will raise it up." — John 2: 19. Now let us carefully 
read St. Luke, chapter 23, verse 46 : " And when 
Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said: Father, 
into thy hands I commend my spirit. And having 
said this, he gave up the ghost." Also, verses 50-53 : 
"Joseph went unto Pilate and begged the body of 
Jesus. And he took it down and wrapped it in linen, 
and laid it in a sepulchre that was hewn in stone, 
wherein never man before was laid." Now read also 
24: 1-7: "And they found not the body of the 
Lord Jesus. And the angel said : ' He is not here, 
but is risen, as He said He would on the third day.' " 

I quote these words that I may bring our author 
face to face with this great central fact of our Holy 
Christianity. Page 23: "There is not a single sign 



So bishop Foster's heresy. 

that it (the body) will ever return to life. To believe 
that it will, on any facts which appear on any rational 
ground within our reach, is impossible." Page 24 : 
" For ages the world has been waiting and watching ; 
millions, with broken hearts, have hovered around the 
yawning abyss ; but no echo has come back from 
the engulphing gloom — silence, oblivion, covers all." 
Now let me ask what about the fact quoted from St. 
Luke of the death, burial and resurrection of our 
Lord Jesus Christ who has become the first fruits and 
pledge of our resurrection? We weep not as them 
who have no hope. " If in this life only we have hope, 
we are of all men most miserable ; but now is Christ 
risen from the dead?" — I Cor. 15 : 19. Our author 
here puts himself back to the same position with 
Plato and Pythagoras. He forever loses the demon- 
stration made by the resurrection of Christ from the 
dead, by which he brought life and immortality to 
light, which is not brought to light unless the same 
body raised was glorified. He says, page 23 : " Until 
we see that the corrupting clod (body), however dear 
to us, is not the person we so fondly loved, hope even 
is impossible; much more, rational belief. [What 
about Mr. Wesley's hope ? Is hope impossible, 
now ? Was Mr. Wesley's belief irrational ?] If it 
is only the house that is in ruins, there is a 
possible chance for the thought that, maybe, the 
overthrow is not utter and irretrievable." Now, as 
before the resurrection of Jesus, that " possible 
chance " can only be a speculation as open to the 
ancients as to us. The resurrection of Jesus is the 



IN THE LIGHT OF THE RESURRECTION. 8 1 

only basal fact on which any rational, comforting hope 
can rest; and that resurrection is the resurrection 
of the body, which our author, with the ancients, 
chooses to call a " corrupting clod" And if we 
choose to believe with our author that " there is not a 
single sign that it will ever return to life, and no facts 
which point to a return to life of the body which is 
destroyed," we must consign ourselves and our the- 
ology, and our race, to the same " misgivings, doubts 
and fears " as the heathen, and hope must take its 
everlasting flight from the grave of our friend. 

Let us pause a moment. If, as our author says 
above, page 23: "Until we see that the corrupting 
clod, however dear to us, is not the person," &c, 
why has the Scriptures left us so entirely ignorant of 
that fact ? If the only possible chance that our over- 
throw is not complete by death lies in the demon- 
stration that it is not the body that survives, why such 
explicit teaching, by precept and example, that it is 
the body that is restored to life. " Destroy this body, 
and in three days I will raise it up again." Why was 
not this necessity felt by Christ and the Apostles, and 
the church ever since? How comes it that our 
author is so wise above what is written ? Look at 
the whole fact of Christ's resurrection and ascension, 
and where is there an intimation that can be with any 
propriety construed to mean anything like this ? If 
not here, where ? Is not this the foundation of all 
our hope? Is not this fact, the fact to which Paul 
and the church turned, as the only fact for hope of 
the resurrection? If it is necessary now, as our author 



82 bishop Foster's heresy. 

claims, why not then, and if then, why did not Christ 
and St. Paul feel that necessity, as our author evi- 
dently does. It would have been an easy matter after 
his death to have appeared to them, as he did after the 
ascension to John, Stephen, and Paul. He could 
have ignored and despised the corrupting clod; or 
even at the ascension he could have left the body to 
the disciples and said, I am not my body, I am a 
spirit. This body can't go up to heaven. I am now 
about to receive my new body; but so far as we know 
he did just the opposite. " I am not a spirit." " Han- 
dle me and see." His last blessing was given with 
uplifted hands, and there is not an intimation that they 
were not the same pierced hands that were offered to 
Thomas to confirm his wavering faith, and he now 
appears in his exalted position as a slain lamb, and 
with Wesley, the church has sung : 

ic Five bleeding wounds he bear, 
Received on Calvary ; 
They pour effectual prayer, 
They strongly plead for me. ' * 

No, no; our author is chasing a phantom, and his 
theory must be condemned as an unsustained hob- 
goblin. By further quotations you will see that he 
makes here a fundamental stand. 

Here is the crucial test; page 31, "Beyond the 
Grave," our author says: " There are no facts which 
point to a return to life of the body which is destroyed. 
We must be able, therefore, to show that what you see 



IN THE LIGHT OF THE RESURRECTION. 83 

is not the man, or abandon all idea of his immortality 
on rational grounds." 

Let us notice this sweeping assertion in two parts : 
First, " There are no facts," &c. Now what can 
our author mean by this ? 

1st. If he means that nature or experience gives us 
no facts, we concede the point. While nature gives 
us many prophecies or illustrations that would inspire 
hope, such as the butterfly coming forth from the 
grave of the chrysalis ; spring coming forth from the 
grave of winter, &c; also in experience such as the 
awakening to consciousness from the grave of slum- 
ber ; the return to consciousness from the grave of 
fever and other diseases, like Bishop Foss and Rev. 
William Tennent, of the Presbyterian Church of 
Freehold, New Jersey; we do not claim these as 
facts that point to the return to life of the dead body. 
But we do claim that it is reasonable to believe that 
the God of all nature can restore to life the body of 
man as the dead and rotted grain. And the parable 
of the Saviour, " Except a corn of wheat fall into the 
ground and die," John 12:24; and also used by St. 
Paul to illustrate this very subject, I Cor. 15 : 35-38: 
"That which thou sowest is not quickened except it 
die." So while we don't claim " any fact in nature or 
experience that points to a return to life of the body 
which is destroyed," yet we do claim that whatever of 
hope or comfort there is in these things, comes from 
their illustrating to our minds the possibility of the 
resurrection of our material nature, and that there is 
not one iota of illustration of life out of the material 



84 bishop Foster's heresy. 

body. The butterfly, on gauzy wing, floating amid 
Eden bowers, sipping the nectar from velvet lips, is 
but the resurrected worm that crept beneath our feet 
on the cold earth, and gnawed the unsavory worm- 
wood and the gall. The rising plant, young, tender, 
beautiful, shaking off its old corrupting clod, rises 
only in the image of its ancester clod ; and the only 
fact that we can force from these illustrations is the 
return to life of our material bodies, if anything. If 
these things fail to " point to a return to life of the 
dead body or material nature," as our author claims, 
they are of no use to him to prove that man lives be- 
yond this life. We claim that these facts in nature 
and experience are helpful to our faith only. 

2d. If he means to say by the assertion that " there 
are no facts," &c, that the resurrection of Jesus Christ 
from the dead is not a fact, then we demur. And 
here is the secret point of his trouble. The resurrec- 
tion of Jesus Christ from the dead in the body that 
was laid in the grave, is the fact that strikes the death 
knell to his whole system. Hence his effort (to me 
dreadful), pages 163-165, to prove this great central, 
basal fact of our Holy Christianity was not a fact. 
He tries to show that what we have understood to be 
the resurrection fact, is not the resurrection fact. He 
says : " The fact, then, that He returned to life in 
the body that was crucified and buried, cannot 
be taken as proof that we are so to be raised. His 
resurrection to natural life no more illustrates the 
doctrine of the immortal life than would the resuscita- 
tion of a neighbor of ours by a miracle, &c. . . . The 



IN THE LIGHT OF THE RESURRECTION. 85 

resurrection of Christ was not the putting on of im- 
mortality. On one occasion, in fact, He, in effect, de- 
clares that He had not entered the resurrection state." 
The angel, however, said: "He is not here; He is 
risen." Peter, James, John and the women said He 
had risen. St. Paul, who never saw Him till after the 
ascension, says (I Cor. 15:3): " For I delivered unto 
you first of all that what I also received," &c; "and 
that He rose again the third day according to the 
Scriptures ; and that He was seen of Cephas, then of 
the twelve," &c. ; "and last of all He was seen of me 
also." Now we see what our author means by his 
sweeping assertion, " There are no facts which point 
to a return to life of the body which is destroyed." 
He not only sweeps away every prophecy in nature 
and experience, but he destroys by one stroke the 
" fact of Christ's resurrection as a proof of the resur- 
rection of the dead." 

Now I ask, that if the resurrection of Jesus Christ 
is not a fact that points to a return to life of the body 
which is destroyed, what kind of a fact is it ? Yes, 
what kind of a fact is it ? With Justin Martyr, A. D. 
165, I ask: "Why did he rise in the body in which he 
suffered, unless to show the resurrection of the body? 
If the resurrection were only spiritual, it was requisite 
that He, in raising the dead, should show the body 
lying apart by itself, and the soul lying apart by itself. 
But now He did not do so, but raised the body, con- 
firming in it the promise of life." " Frag. Res." chap, 
ix. "Apol." ii. 

Is it possible that this great fact is not a fact ? I an- 



86 bishop Foster's heresy. 

swer, ten thousand times, No ! Our author, infatuated 
by a dream of his philosophy, carries his sophistries 
so far that he would overthrow the very foundations of 
our Holy Christianity. If he is right here, our hopes 
are vain, our preaching is vain, we are yet in our sins. 
But, thank God, he is beside himself. For now is 
Christ risen from the dead and become the first fruits 
of them that slept. Christ arose from the dead in the 
flesh that saw no corruption. He walked and talked 
and appeared unto many for forty days. He lived not 
by a natural life, but by the power of an endless life. 
" I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take 
it again." " I am He that was dead, and am alive for- 
evermore," and have the keys of death. How or 
when that body was glorified, we agree with Foster 
that we don't know. On the Mount of Transfigura- 
tion, He was once glorified before His death. When 
or where after the resurrection we are not told; but as 
it was the same body glorified on the Mount of Trans- 
figuration, so it was the same body that was raised 
from the grave, that was glorified and ascended to 
heaven; and the promise is that this same Jesus shall 
come again. 

If Jesus did not ascend to heaven in the same body 
that was raised from the grave and was quickened 
into life, what body did He ascend in ? From whence 
came it? What became of the old body that was 
crucified, dead and buried, and arose on the third 
day? Did it fall over the brow of Olivet's mount? 
Did it collapse like a balloon, and its elements separate 
into the original dust ? 



IN THE LIGHT OF THE RESURRECTION. 87 

What becomes of the fact of the resurrection, if it 
does not point to the return of the body to life ? 
What of its significance ? It would be naturally and 
wholly misleading, if somehow or other, after forty 
days of effort to convince the world of His power 
over death and the grave by many demonstrations 
that the dead was alive, He manages to slip out of the 
old corruptible clod and gets away without detection. 
What becomes of this great fact ? What becomes of 
the testimony of those forty days? Did Christ let 
them know where His second grave was ? If not, 
why not? If they did know, why did they not tell 
us ? Where is the deception ? If the body that was 
raised did not rise to demonstrate His power over 
death and the grave concerning the body, if the resur- 
rection fact does not point to the return of the body 
to immortal life after death, what did it signify to the 
Jews and to the world, for nearly all men have be- 
lieved in the life of the soul after death? It did not 
need a bodily resurrection to demonstrate that to the 
world. Where is the significance of the fact ? Come 
with me out to Olivet. The Saviour and the eleven 
walk and talk together. They know that He is risen 
from the dead ; even Thomas believes now. " Lord 
will thou at this time restore Israel." He spreads 
those pierced hands in blessing on their heads. 
Thomas, are those the hands that He showed thee in 
that upper room? Peter, James and John, is that the 
same Jesus you have been with for more than three 
years — on the sea! on the mountain! in the wilder- 
ness? Was that brow crowned in Pilate's hall? Were 



88 bishop poster's heresy. 

those feet and hands nailed to the cross ? Was that 
side pierced by the soldier's spear? Are you sure that 
He is the same one you have followed ? See, He rises 
higher and higher, higher and higher. Is it He still ? 
What arose, the body or soul ? " Why stand ye gazing 
up into heaven, ye men of Galilee" — Thomas, James 
and John? "This same Jesus which is taken up from 
you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye 
have seen Him go into heaven." 

St. Paul seems to understand this same Jesus, body 
as well as soul, to have ascended. Heb. 9 : 12: " By 
his own blood He entered in once into the holy place." 
Verse 24 : " For Christ is not entered into the holy 
places made with hands, but into heaven itself now, 
to appear in the presence of God for us." Also, 
chap. 10, v. 5 : " But a body hast thou prepared me." 
Also, verse 10: "By the which will we are sanctified 
through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once 
for all." Verse 12: "But this man, after He had 
offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the 
right hand of God." 

John on Patmos saw Jesus after he had seen Him 
rise from Olivet; and although very glorious, I sup- 
pose equal, if not far transcending, the glory of the 
Transfiguration, yet he recognized him at least as one 
like unto the Son of Man. But to put cavil out of 
the question, Jesus declares himself: "I am He that 
liveth, and was dead ; and behold I am alive forever- 
more." Now, I ask, if his body was not dead, what 
was ? The spirit returned to God, and no one would 
claim that it was dead. Now, if the body that Thomas 



IN THE LIGHT OF THE RESURRECTION. 89 

saw and was convinced by was thrown over the brow 
of Olivet, and did not ascend, what was dead and 
made alive again? If, as our author says, page 165, 
" His glorified humanity was assumed at or after the 
scene on Olivet," was that assumed body a dead 
body or a living body ? If a living body, had it been 
dead and brought to life? or how did Jesus say, I 
was dead ? If he assumed a dead body at or after 
Olivet, where did he find that dead carcass ? Was it 
a dead body of a saint or a sinner ? 

If this glorified being whom John recognized as the 
Son of Man, and who declared, " I am He that liveth 
and was dead," was not the same material body that 
suffered, groaned, died, and was buried, rose again 
and ascended to the Father, how could he say, " I am 
He that liveth and was dead?" 

Our author has the candor to state, page 165, "That 
no historian has given any account of it." Then why 
has he the audacity to assume what makes the de- 
monstrations of the forty days, and the plain teaching 
of the eye-witnesses of the scene of Olivet, deceptive? 
If, as our author states, he assumed it "at the scene 
of Olivet," why did not the witnesses declare it? If 
" he assumed it after the scene of Olivet," why did 
Christ allow the deception ? If, as our author says, 
page 166, " We shall be changed, not like unto the 
body of the post-resurrection history while he yet 
tarried among us, but like unto the body He received 
amid the splendor of the Olivet scene, when the 
earthly was exchanged for the heavenly," why has 
no historian told us about such exchange ? Why does 



90 bishop Foster's heresy. 

the historian talk about a change instead of an ex- 
change? Why does St. Paul say (I Cor. 15: 51): 
" Behold I show you a mystery. We shall not all 
sleep, but we shall all be changed;" also, verse 52: 
In a moment " The dead shall be raised incorruptible, 
and we sha 1 be changed;" Phil. 3:21: " Who shall 
change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like 
unto His glorious body " ? 

Now, why doesn't this inspired author talk like our 
author ? Why does he not say this vile earthly body 
shall be exchanged for the heavenly body? Why 
should there be this difference ? Manifestly because 
our author believes this earthly body shall be ex- 
changed for a something else. This old body is left 
at the door. It can go no further. The spirit is 
clothed upon with a new body when the old one dies. 
St. Paul believed that the dead should be raised in- 
corruptible, and the living should be changed in a 
moment, i. e. f the old body should not be exchanged, 
but changed. This vile body shall be changed, not 
exchanged. The change is in the vile body ; it shall 
receive the change, not laid aside for another, a new 
one. It shall be made in the change like his glorious 
body. Here is the secret spring of the whole error, 
only a little prefix, ex. To confound these two simple 
distinctions is to confuse the simplest laws of our lan- 
guage, beside confounding the ever-distinct subjects 
of the resurrection of the body and that of its glori- 
fication by the power of God. 

Dr. Adam Clark, on II Tim. 1 : 10, very forcefully 
contradicts our author : " He took the same human 



IN THE LIGHT OF THE RESURRECTION. 9 1 

body up into heaven, in the sight of his disciples ; 
and ever appears in the presence of God for us ; and 
thus has illustrated the doctrine of incorruption. In 
his death, resurrection and ascension, the doctrine of 
eternal life, and the resurrection of the human body, 
and its final incorruptibility, are fully illustrated by 
example, and established by fact." And yet our 
author persists in saying, page 31, "There are no facts 
which point to a return to life of the body which is 
destroyed;" and I have shown that the fact of the 
resurrection of Christ's body is included by our au- 
thor, and we are left in the same category of the ancients 
with only misgivings, doubts and fears, and with our 
author must " abandon all idea of his immortality on 
rational grounds," page 32. This leads us to Part II. 

Our author, as quoted above, says, since there is 
no fact which points to the return to life of the body 
which is destroyed, therefore we must be able to show 
that what you see is not the man, or abandon all idea 
of his immortality on rational grounds. I answer, 

1st. We have shown that there are prophetic facts 
in nature and experience that point to the return to 
life of the body which is destroyed. 

2d. We have shown that the resurrection of Christ 
not only points to the return of the body to life, but 
that it demonstrates beyond the possibility of a doubt, 
by well authenticated, indubitable evidence, the great- 
est fact of history, that the body of Christ did return 
to life; that the grave did give up its dead, and He 
that was dead rose to die no more, and was changed 
into ineffable and eternal glory ; and that our author's 



92 BISHOP FOSTERS HERESY. 

attempt to break down this great fact is a miserable 
failure. 

If there is any fact in the whole realm of facts fully 
established beyond the shadow of a doubt to the Chris- 
tian, it is the fact that one dead body committed to the 
grave did return to life ; did come forth from the 
sealed tomb, and that it lived and walked with men, 
fully establishing its identity, and in the presence of 
eleven worthy witnesses ascended in broad daylight 
to heaven. To deny, or to throw suspicion upon this 
fact, worthy of all acceptation, is a business of which 
none but the most abandoned should be capable ; and 
how our author should have been led to lend the 
weight of his pen to weaken the conviction of this 
the greatest fact, and the most fundamental fact of our 
Holy Christianity, I cannot understand. Now, notice, 
our author demands that we must be able to show 
that what we see (i. e. y the body) is not the man, or 
abandon all idea of rational immortality. 

I answer, ist, I have shown in Chapters I and II, 
that man is a compound being, consisting of body, 
soul and spirit ; and that while the body is not the 
man, neither is the spirit the man. 

I answer, 2d, That if we must prove that what we 
see (t. e. y the body of material nature) is not the man 
or the part essential to his future happiness, we are 
divested of our strongest comfort, because we have 
no possibility of investigating or knowing of the 
existence of man as a spirit; and with Dr. Munsell 
I say : " A science of pure spirit, were it possible to 
man, would be wholly of speculative value." Hence 



IN THE LIGHT OF THE RESURRECTION. 93 

our author sweeps away all practical facts, and all 
possible hope on rational grounds, and throws us 
back to the guessing of the ancients. And if, as he 
says, page 163, " The fact, then, that He (Christ) re- 
turned to life in the body that was crucified and 
buried, cannot be taken as proof that we are so to be 
raised," then there is no proof of a future life, and 
we are of all men most miserable. " Now, if Christ 
be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some 
among you that there is no resurrection of the 
dead? but if there be no resurrection of the dead, then 
is Christ not risen. . . . Whom he raised not up, 
if so be that the dead rise. not. For if the dead rise 
not, then is not Christ raised. And if Christ be not 
raised, your preaching is vain; ye are yet in your sins." 
— I Cor. 15 : 1 2-1 7. O, sad wailing of human hearts ! 
"Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are 
perished." " But, thank God, now is Christ risen from 
the dead and become the first fruits of them that 
slept."— Paul. 

Now let us briefly, in conclusion, show by quoting 
without note or comment some teaching from our 
author and the Scriptures. 

However, let us bear in mind the fundamental dif- 
ference between our author and the Scriptures. We 
have already seen that he teaches that the man is a 
spirit. The body is no part of the man. The spirit 
is an immaterial, immutable, incorruptible substance, 
like God, an angel. The body is material, beastly, 
idiotic, dying, a corruptible clod. 

The body at death returns to the dust, never to live 



94 BISHOP FOSTER S HERESY. 

again ; it can never return to life ; a resurrection here 
is impossible. 

The spirit leaves this body never to return again. 
They can never be reunited. It, that is, the man, the 
spirit, lives on. It doesn't die. It doesn't enter the 
grave. It goes to God, enters heaven, the abode of 
spirits, is a pure spirit, mingles with spirits, is free for- 
ever from its cage, its former body. It emerges at 
death from the old shell. It may be clothed upon 
with a psychical body of some kind. What this psy- 
chical nondescript is, we are not told ; where it comes 
from we are left to guess; except it (i. e., the spirit) 
weaves for itself a new robe. 

Now, where is the resurrection? The body never 
rises. The spirit never dies. 

The Scriptures teach emphatically that the spirit 
never dies, it cannot have a resurrection from the 
dead. They teach that the dead shall live again. 
They teach that death itself, even, shall be conquered. 
They teach that there shall be a resurrection both of 
the just and of the unjust. They teach that the body 
shall be raised, and that the soul and the body of the 
wicked shall be cast into hell. They teach that the 
grave and even the sea shall give up their dead. Paul 
declares the dead (not the living) shall be raised, and 
we shall be changed. In the light of these two teach- 
ings let us quote from the two authorities. 

" Beyond the Grave," page 23, "We consign the 
quickly decaying form to the grave. We know that 
it soon moulders to dust. There is not a single sign 
that it will ever germinate or return to life. To believe 



IN THE LIGHT OF THE RESURRECTION. 95 

that it will on any rational ground within our reach is 
impossible." 

Jesus, in John 5 : 28-29, " Marvel not at this : for the 
hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves 
shall hear His voice, and shall come forth ; they that 
have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they 
that have done evil, unto the resurrection of dam- 
nation." 

St. Paul, 1 Cor. 15:36, "That which thou sowest 
is not quickened except it die." Verse 52, "And the 
dead shall be raised." Also 1 Thess. 4: 16, " And the 
dead in Christ shall rise first." 

John 19:33, 34, "But when they came to Jesus, 
and saw that He was dead already, they break not His 
legs: but one of the soldiers with a spear pierced His 
side, and forthwith came there out blood and water." 
Verse 40, " Then took they the body of Jesus and 
wound it in fine linen clothes with the spices." Matt. 
27 : 58-66: " He went to Pilate and begged the body 
of Jesus. Then Pilate commanded the body to be 
delivered. And when Joseph had taken the body, he 
wrapped it in a clean linen cloth and laid it in his own 
new tomb, and he rolled a great stone to the door of 
the sepulchre," &c. 

Next chapter, verses 5 and 6 : " And the angel said, 
He is not here, for He is risen, as He said ; come, see 
the place where the Lord lay." Luke 24:46-51: 
" And said unto them, thus it is written, and thus it 
behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead 
the third day ; and ye are witnesses of these thinp-s. 
And it came to pass, while He blessed them, He was 



96 bishop Foster's heresy. 

parted from them and carried up into heaven." Matt. 
27 : 52, 53 : "And the graves were opened, and many 
bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out 
of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the 
holy city and appeared unto many." John 1 1 : 39-44 : 
" Jesus said, Take ye away the stone. Martha, the 
sister of him that was dead, saith unto him, Lord, by 
this time he stinketh, for he had been dead four days." 
. . . " And Jesus cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, 
come forth; and he that was dead came forth." Rev. 
20:12, 13: "And I saw the dead, small and great, 
stand before God. . . . And the sea g ,ve up the 
dead which were in it, and death and hell (Hades) de- 
livered up the dead which were in them, and they 
were judged, every man according to their works." 
Acts 17:31: "Whereof He hath given assurance 
unto all men in that He hath raised Him (Jesus) from 
the dead." 

Beyond the Grave, 256: " The animal, which served 
it well, can serve it no longer ; will have accomplished 
its mediatorial purpose ; will have led the immortal 
to the door of his heaven, into which it cannot go ; 
and being no further useful, but a clog and shackle, 
will be left at the gate." Also page 147: "In the 
change we lose our earthly bodies, and all conditions 
of the life we lived in them, which we have outgrown, 
the ends of which have been served. We are born 
into new conditions, with a psychical body of some 
kind, which as imperceptibly develops while we live as 
the body of the child unconsciously grew in the womb." 
Again, page 182-3: "The resurrection is the standing 



IN THE LIGHT OF THE RESURRECTION. 97 

again after death. The body of the resurrection is the 
body with which the spirit is clothed for its celestial 
life. The organizing life principle is uninterrupted 
and identical. It begins in the natural, and weaves its 
curious integuments of dust for earthly use ; it weaves 
the new robes for the departing soul. ... I wish to put 
on record here that, for myself, there is nothing in 
any particle of flesh or blood that ever belonged to my 
body that creates in me a least desire to ever see it 
again. Beyond the grave we have found that the 
spirit is immortal, and that it will be clothed upon 
w T ith a new form when the old one perishes." Matt. 
10:28 : "And fear not them which kill the body, but 
are not able to kill the soul; but rather fear him 
which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell" 
(Gehenna). I Cor. 15:12-20: "Now if Christ be 
preached that he rose from the dead, how say some 
among you that there is no resurrection of the dead ; 
but if there be no resurrection of the dead, then 
is Christ not risen," &c. Acts 1:9, 22: "While 
they beheld He was taken up." " To be a witness 
with us of his resurrection." 

Sw r edenborg is the only witness we know of that 
ever saw the resurrection taught by our author. 
Acts 24:15: "There shall be a resurrection of the 
dead, both of the just and unjust." I Cor. 15:51: 
" Behold I show you a mystery : We shall not all 
sleep (die), but we shall all be changed (not die and 
rot) in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the 
last trump, for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead 
shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed" 



98 bishop Foster's heresy. 

not exchanged for a psychical nonsense. " For this 
corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal 
must put on immortality." 

John Wesley says : " Now by this mortal and this 
corruptible can only be meant that body which we 
carry about with us, and shall one day lay down in 
the dust." And with the creed of the Christian 
church, " I believe in Jesus Christ who suffered under 
Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried; that 
He rose again the third day ; that he ascended into 
heaven." And with St. John I expect to see him in 
all his glorified humanity. Rev. 1:13-17: " And in 
the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the 
Son of Man, clothed with a garment down to the 
foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle. 
His head and His hairs were white like wool, as white 
as snow; and His eyes were as a flame of fire; and 
His feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a 
furnace; and His voice as the sound of many waters. 
His countenance was as the sun shineth in his 
strength." And with John I expect to fall at his feet 
overcome with the grandeur of His resurrection glory; 
and glory to his name, I shall feel his own kind hand 
upon me, and hear Him say : " Fear not, I am the 
first and the last ; I am He that liveth and was dead ; 
and behold I am alive forevermore." 



CHAPTER V. 



bishop Foster's heresy compared with other here- 
sies, " PELAGIANISM " AND " SWEDENBORGIANISM." 



Our author's false premise, " Man is a spirit," leads 
him inevitably into the errors of Pelagianism as to the 
origin of death to man, and consequently into the 
errors of Pelagianism and of Swedenborgianism as to 
the resurrection of the human body. Notice, 

first, his pelagianism. 

The first charge against Pelagianism was that it 
taught " That Adam was created mortal, and would 
have died whether he sinned or not." See McClin- 
tock and Strong, Art. Pelagianism. Jensen and 
Gamier " maintain that this first tenet is the root 
of the whole system of Pel gianism," which we think 
could be readily maintained. However this may or 
may not be, our author's " Spirit Man," and " Animal 
Body " leads inevitably into this same error essenti- 
ally. And he had no need to add Note B. in his 
appendix in " Beyond the Grave " to make it clear ; 
but since he has, we will quote from it to convict him 
from his own pen. Far be it from us to charge our 



ioo bishop Foster's heresy. 



author with holding to all of the heresy of Pelagian- 
ism; but his system has the root; and given the same 
soil and atmosphere of Pelagius, it would lead to 
the same results ; and so far as the resurrection is 
concerned it inevitably leads to the fourth charge 
against Pelagianism, viz : " That since neither by the 
death nor transgression of Adam the whole race dies, 
so neither will the whole human race rise again from 
the dead on account of Christ's resurrection." 

I admit that our author tries to evade his true teach- 
ing by some admissions about the tree of life ; but 
like his resurrection it is only an evasion, only a little 
side current, while his whole channel sweeps on to the 
inevitable. Man is a spirit. The body is purely 
animal. Death is its natural terminus. Let us quote 
" Beyond the Grave," page 243 : u We are free to con- 
fess that we can see nothing in the nature of man to 
exempt him from the common law of death so far 
forth as he is animal. Further, we are constrained to 
believe, that, left to the mere working of natural law, 
he would have died. He most certainly included in 
his created constitution tendencies to death. The 
same causes that work dissolution in other creatures 
were active in his nature. As to his organic life he 
was naturally mortal!' Here is expressed our author's 
true idea of man's physical nature. It is in keeping 
with the whole theory of his " spirit man " and " body 
machine." Page 247 he says : " His real self is spirit, 
not body." " The scaffolding which is necessary to 
the building, while it is in process of erection, becomes 
a deformity," &c. "The egg which nourishes and pro- 



COMPARED WITH OTHER HERESIES. IOI 

tects the young bird while it is preparing for its life of 
freedom in the outer air would smother and destroy 
it if continued but a little too long. The expanding 
germ could not long live," &c. "In the case of man 
there is abundant evidence that he does, in an in- 
credibly brief period, grow beyond his present ap- 
pointments," &c. "The organism, the animal, in which 
the man, the spirit — the true and only self — comes 
swathed, answers the double purpose for a time, but 
it soon becomes an incumbrance," &c. " There is 
nothing that pertains to a body . . . that would be 
agreeable to carry up through eternity," &c. Nor is 
this fact of growing disharmony with its earthly con- 
ditions attributable to the accident of sin, or any 
abnormal effects arising therefrom. " Had man re- 
mained forever innocent, &c, death entered into the 
very essence of the economy. The babe in the womb, 
the bird in the shell," &c, are not more obvious cases 
of incipient and preliminary stages of life having 
reference to a more advanced stage than is the present 
condition of man. " The ultimate for man as the 
highest and grandest thing possible to his nature — 
the culmination and completeness of his being — is 
spiritual perfection." " At first bodies are necessary," 
page 253. "The animal which served it well, can 
serve it no longer; will have accomplished its 
mediatorial purpose ; will have led the immortal to 
the door of his heaven, into which it cannot go ; and 
being no further useful, but a clog and shackle, will 
be left at the gate." — " Beyond the Grave," page 256. 
Pages 258 and 259: " Where life was supreme, death 



102 BISHOP FOSTERS HERESY. 

holds undisputed sway. There is not, and never has 
been, an exception to this in the realm of terrestrial 
life. All things that have a material life live through 
a cycle — it may be a minute, it may be a thousand 
years — and die ; die because that for which they lived 
has been accomplished. Life is a transient and 
transitive force. Thus it appears, from the nature 
of the life acting in and through matter, that death is 
its normal terminus ad quern. Nothing short of 
eternal miracle, set for the guardianship of each life, 
could guarantee its deathless continuance." 

Now let me quote the first and fourth charge 
against Pelagianism: 

Charge ist. " That Adam was created mortal, and 
would have died whether he sinned or not." Our 
author, page 251, says : " Death entered into the very 
essence of the economy." " Nor is this fact of grow- 
ing disharmony with its earthly conditions attributable 
to the accident of its sin." — Page 249. " Sin, which 
entered the world by one man is new, while death is 
ancient. The cause cannot be subsequent to the ef- 
fect." — Page 268. Can anyone doubt the truthful- 
ness of the charge, that our author is guilty of this 
first charge : Adam was created mortal, and that sin 
did not bring in death ? And if the first charge is 
sustained the fourth follows as a natural sequence, 
viz : " Since neither by the dearth nor transgression of 
Adam the whole race dies, so neither will the whole 
human race rise again from the dead." I can only 
refer the reader to our author's oft-repeated assertions, 
" There are no facts which point to a return to life of 



COMPARED WITH OTHER HERESIES. IO3 

the body which is destroyed. There is every indica- 
tion that it never will ; to believe that it will is impos- 
sible," &c, &c. These prove conclusively that our 
author is in full sympathy with Pelagianism so far as 
these two charges are concerned. 

Now, if we may diverge a moment, let us ask, What 
will our author do with his " Tree of life sacrament?" 
page 244. If we allow any force to his digression, as 
on page 243 : "And yet we accept the idea that had he 
not sinned he would not have died; the naturally mor- 
tal as to his organic life would have been, by special 
supernatural interference, made immortal;" i. e. 9 as on 
page 259, "An eternal miracle set for the guardian- 
ship of each life could guarantee its deathless contin- 
uance." Also, page 245, "This immunity was not of 
nature, but of grace." 

Now let us ask, If the "real self is spirit, not body;" 
if this body which is necessary at first soon becomes 
an insupportable burden; if there is nothing that per- 
tains to this body that would be agreeable to carry up 
through eternity, why, we ask, was the tree of life in- 
flicted upon Adam in the Garden of Eden ? Why 
should it, that is, the body, be kept alive by an eternal 
miracle? Why keep the babe in the womb, the bird 
in the shell, the germ in the seed, until it (i. e. } the 
body) becomes, not only an insupportable burden, but 
finally destroys the babe, the bird, the germ, yea, 
the spirit-man. Hence, we see that death was not 
only natural, but necessary to the life of the spirit. 
Now, if our author would admit that man was created 
immortal, and that the tree of life, like the tree of the 



104 bishop Foster's heresy. 

knowledge of good and evil, was but an outward sign 
of an inward fact; that man was alive bv his nature, 
and the tree of life was but an outward and visible 
sign of that fact, like the Lord's supper, and the tree 
of good and evil the outw T ard sign or test of obedience, 
then the tree of life would answer a purpose ; but if 
man was naturally mortal, and immortality in a body 
was undesirable, and death desirable as well as nat- 
ural, then the tree of life would only be a standing 
menace to what was desirable. If "death," as our 
author claims, page 25 1, " entered into the very essence 
of the economy ;" if death is born of creation, not of 
retribution ; if it is God's offspring direct, not a penal 
device ; if it exists in the bosom of sinless, not merely 
sinning nature, why, we ask, was the tree of life allow- 
able in the garden? and why does our author advert 
to it, except as a side show to cover up an apparent 
discrepancy in his system ? If Adam had not sinned, 
should he have been compelled to carry the burden- 
some body forever ? Then we see a new excuse for 
his sin. 

Now, if our author will allow, we will suggest that 
Adam was created immortal, in the image of God. 
The tree of life was appointed as a sacrament of which 
he was to eat in grateful, loving obedience. The tree 
of the knowledge of good and evil was forbidden also 
as a standing sacrament not to be eaten. If he had 
not sinned he would have remained immortal, for the 
threatening was death if he ate of the forbidden tree. 
On his obedience or disobedience his existence hung, 
and that existence was of the body, as well as the 



COMPARED WITH OTHER HERESIES. IO5 

happiness of the spirit. In that immortality he would 
have lived on earth until the walking and communing 
with God so filled him with God that the body would 
have been so spiritualized and glorified that, like 
Enoch rising from this lower sphere, he would have 
passed, soul, body and spirit, into the inner glory, into 
the New Jerusalem, that hath foundations ; and that 
not by an eternal miracle but by the natural, inborn, 
undying nature, of which Enoch and Elijah were but 
miraculous examples to speak to a sin-cursed world of 
the better hope in Jesus Christ, the world's Redeemer, 
and inspired the ages to look for that better resurrec- 
tion so long foretold. 

Even an unbelieving scientist like Herbert Spencer 
can show this scientifically proper, for he says (page 
88, Principles of Biology): " Perfect correspondence 
would be perfect life. Were there no changes in the 
environment but such as the organism had adapted 
changes to meet, and were it never to fail in the 
efficiency with which it met them, there would be 
eternal existence." Now, if this be a scientific truth, 
how easy for a Christian believer to see unsinning 
man, fresh and pure from the Creator's hands in an 
uncursed world, with the tree of life as a sacrament, 
to have this " perfect correspondence." And is it not 
rational to believe that this exalted creature in God's 
image would have had an organism, untrammeled by 
sin, equal to every emergency, so that from this world 
he could have peopled the entire material universe ? 

Now, if our author had consulted St. Paul, and had 
allowed him proper authority over his mind, he would 



io6 bishop Foster's heresy^ 

have saved himself a shameful position. For St. Paul 
declares, upon the authority of an inspired Apostle, 
Rom. 5 : 12: " Therefore, as by one man sin entered 
into the world, and death by sin." Yet our author 
hesitates not to say, page 268 : " Sin, which entered 
the world 'by one man' is new, while death is ancient. 
The cause cannot be subsequent to the effect." It is 
evident that St. Paul or our author needs revising. 
The new version revises St. Paul, but makes no 
change here. " As through one man sin entered into 
the world, and death through sin." 

God said to Adam : " In the day thou eatest thereof 
thou shalt surely die." — Gen. 2:17. Moth tamnth, 
dying, thou shalt surely die ; i. e., in the day of 
transgression thou shalt die morally, and dying mor- 
ally, thou shalt die physically. Gen. 3:17: " And 
unto Adam he said, Because thou has harkened unto 
the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree of 
which I commanded thee saying thou shalt not eat 
of it," &c, " in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat 
bread till thou return unto the ground; for out of it 
wast thou taken ; for dust thou art and unto dust 
shalt thou return." 

This is apparently the foundation of St. Paul's 
authority. The Apostle evidently means that by this 
transgression in the garden Adam committed the first 
sin, and that through this first sin the threat of God, 
" in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die," 
was carried out, and death entered into the human 
race and Adam died, and in him, as the federal head, 
the race fell into sin and consequent death. Now, our 



COMPARED WITH OTHER HERESIES. IO7 

author, with Plagianism, says : " He most certainly 
included in his created constitution tendencies to 
death." " Death entered into the very essence of the 
economy." " Sin is new, death is ancient." 

St. Paul says, I Cor. 15:21, 22 : "For since by man 
came death, by man came also the resurrection of the 
dead ; for as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall 
all be made alive." Our author not only contradicts 
Paul ; he also contradicts one even greater than Paul. 
The Master saith, " Marvel not at this, for the hour is 
coming in the which all that are in their graves shall 
hear his voice," &c. — John 5 128, 29. Hence our au- 
thor, joining with Pelagius, says man was born 
mortal ; death was natural ; the body is a clog, a 
burden ; it must be left at the grave; it will never rise 
again; sin had nothing to do with its death; the res- 
urrection is not the living again of the dead body, but 
the living on of the spirit, which is provided a new 
body when the old one perishes. Bodies are only 
cells in which to nourish spirits. God's plan is to 
raise spirits. Our author employs ten of his last 
pages to prove that death is natural, and hence not 
penal. Death was born in the beginning of creation. 
" Thus the fashion, habits and necessities of the struc- 
tures built by life proclaim death to be normal and 
primitive. It is born of creation, not of retribution. 
It is God's offspring direct, not a penal device. It ex- 
ists in the bosom of sinless, not sinning nature." 
Page 262. He succeeds at least in one thing, viz: 
In proving that he holds with Pelagianism, " That 



108 bishop Foster's heresy. 

Adam was created mortal, and would have died 
whether he sinned or not." In these ten pages our 
author submits three arguments to prove this propo- 
sition : 

ist. " One class of life is dependent for its subsis- 
tence on the destruction of another class." — Page 260. 

2d. " My third proof is derived from the law of fe- 
cundation or propagation obtaining among living 
things." — Page 262. 

3d. " My fourth argument is that death existed be- 
fore sin, and could not be penal." — Page 267. 

Now we desire to notice, 

ist. Our author fails to separate two very different 
things, viz : The origin of death to man — mankind — 
and the origin of death to other living things in the 
lower kingdoms of life. This is fatal to his argu- 
ments. It comes from his failure to see that man is 
not an animal. " God created man from the dust," 
not an animal. St. Paul is arguing for the origin of 
death to man. He says particularly, " death passed 
upon all men, for all have sinned." " As in Adam all 
die, so in Christ shall all be made alive." How fool- 
ish to suppose he is talking of the death and resurrec- 
tion of animals, or insects, or sparrows, or plants. 
Hence our author begs the whole question. As to 
the question of the origin of death in the lower or- 
ders of creation, we neither accept nor reject our au- 
thor's teaching; it may or it may not be true; we 
don't know ; as it is net revealed, and as we were not 
at creation's dawn, we cannot be positive; but that 



COMPARED WITH OTHER HERESIES. IO9 

man was not created an animal, and that he was not 
created mortal, we do know upon the highest author- 
ity possible to have. 

2d. Our author fails to show in his second argu- 
ment any animal that is dependent upon man's life for 
existence. In order for this argument to have force 
he should show that there is a class of beings whose 
only food is man, and that on man alone they can ex- 
ist, which is contrary to all facts. He should further 
show that this class of animals were created at the 
same time and place man was ; and further, that they 
inhabit the earth still. We see the force of his argu- 
ment for the lower orders as they are ; but God gave 
man control of the lower orders, and all things were 
apparently made for man's use ; but not one was made 
to exist upon human flesh. Hence, again, his argu- 
ment does not apply to man. 

3d. Our author's proof from the law of propagation 
fails to be applicable to man. He says, page 262: 
" My third proof is derived from the law of fecunda- 
tion or propagation obtaining among living things." 
Then follows the most remarkable article I remember 
to have read. Hence it is very properly prefaced by 
our author thus: " Prepare to be surprised at what 
follows. I am sure the event will astonish you more 
than you can imagine." 

Then follow some tables which show the remark- 
able fecundity of the English sparrow. Then he adds 
with the innocence of a child (page 265) : " Let us 
substitute men for sparrows." But, we ask, what has 
man in common with a bird ? Why substitute man 



no bishop Foster's heresy. 



for a sparrow ? But we cannot forbear quoting this 
remarkable table, which is submitted as a proof that 
man was born mortal, because there would be no 
room for him. Hear him: " Suppose, as in the form- 
er case (i. e. y sparrows), each generation to double, or 
each human pair to have four children, and none die ; 
as we are now about the two hundredth generation, 
the figures at the present time would be the same as 
in the above calculation. Let us give a foot square 
to each man, and suppose the average height to be 
four feet; what would be the result as to the relation 
of men to the square feet on the earth's surface ? 
The number of men would be in round numbers, 
as already stated, 3,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,- 
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, or, 
in round numbers, three octillions of decillions. 
Then add 5,575,680,000,000,000 quadrillions of square 
feet on the earth's surface. This would go into the 
above more than five hundred billions of decillions of 
times, which would be the number of men for each 
square foot. As by supposition the average height is 
four feet, the column of human flesh would tower 
into space to the inconceivable height of two trillions 
of decillions of feet, which, divided by 5280, the num- 
ber of feet in a mile, would show four hundreds of 
millions of decillions of miles, or, as shown by divid- 
ing this sum by 100,000,000, the number of miles the 
sun is from the earth, it would be four decillions of 
times higher than the sun. Now, as it takes a ray of 
light eight minutes to reach the earth from the sun, it 
would require more than thirty-two decillions of min- 



COMPARED WITH OTHER HERESIES. I I I 

utes to traverse the length of this column of human 
flesh ; and as there are but 525,600 minutes in a year, 
it would require fifty octillions of years for the ray to 
make the transit, a measure of which there are no 
parallels known, even in the sidereal spaces — quintill- 
ions of times greater than the distance between us 
and the most remote nebula." 

Now notice his conclusion, page 267, "We have in- 
troduced but three varieties of life of the millions of 
millions of species that the great God made to dwell 
on the face of the earth, and we have discovered 
(wonderful discovery) that these three would, in the 
space of a few years, not merely crowd the entire 
surface of the earth, but would pile it higher than the 
utmost known heavens, if death did not cut short 
their existence. What would it be if all the species 
were deathless?" " Nothing is more certain or 
obvious than that he who originated the realm of life, 
and appointed its fecundity, appointed death as its 
necessary concomitant. The one order includes the 
other; birth carried death not less certainly and 
necessarily than life in its embrace." We must be 
excused if we fail to see but one argument in all this, 
viz : Our author holds to the teaching of Pelagian- 
ism : " Man was born mortal and would have died 
whether he sinned or not." 

We will suggest a few questions: (1.) If Adam 
had not sinned what would have become of this in- 
comparable number of human beings ? If we allow 
our author's effort at evasion by reverting to the tree 
of life, page 244, what would have become of the un- 



I I 2 BISHOP FOSTER S HERESY. 

dying race? (2.) Where does our author get the 
authority for supposing the unsinning and undying 
race would live here on earth and propagate forever ? 
Is not the teaching of Scripture clear that this earth 
is not our home ? Was not the translation of Enoch 
and Elijah a direct object lesson, that man was des- 
tined to other climes ? Are not the resurrection and 
ascension of Christ evidence that this earth is not 
man's eternal honie ? (3.) How does our author 
know unsinning man would have propagated so 
rapidly? (4.) If it was necessary to have death to 
keep man from filling the universe, even the sidereal 
heavens, and thus blocking the whole system with 
human flesh, what becomes of God's plan ? We 
confess our inability to comprehend this wonderful 
table. I cannot comprehend the danger the table in- 
timates. God's material universe in its vastness is be- 
yond comprehension, as well as this table ; and if this 
table is immense, God's universe is immensity itself. 
We think God could have in some way provided 
room for all the undying race that Adam would have 
propagated. 

We will now find a new T use for our " Recreations 
in Astronomy." Let us try to find a table large 
enough to spread our author's remarkable one upon. 

How many can find room and support on earth 
even as it is now, cursed by sin, no one knows. How 
many would it have supported had man not sinned ? 
How much room could God have provided in the 
Solar system, of which the earth is but as a small 
point (a pea to a barrel)? What of the room in 



COMPARED WITH OTHER HERESIES. I I 3 

God's material universe called the Sidereal Heavens ? 
What of the Circumpolar Constellation ? What of 
the Equatorial Constellations? What of the Southern 
Circumpolar Constellations ? H. W. Warren says, 
page 72, " If our earth were suddenly to dissolve its 
allegiance to the king of day, and attempt a flight to 
the North Star (the centre of the Circumpolar Con- 
stellation), and should maintain its flight of one thou- 
sand miles a minute, it would fly away toward Polaris 
for thousands of thousands of years, till a million years 
had passed away before it reached that northern dome 
of the distant sky and gave its new allegiance to 
another sun. The sun it had left behind it would 
gradually diminish till it was small as Arcturus, thus 
small as could be discerned by the naked eye, until at 
last it would finally fade out in utter darkness long 
before the new sun was reached." Light, which comes 
from the sun in eight minutes, takes forty-five years 
to come from Polaris, so that the light I look upon in 
his brilliant face started before I was born. O, what 
illimitable space ! What illimitable greatness of room 
in the millions of millions of worlds, suns and sys- 
tems. O, who would limit man to one by four feet 
when he is God's own child, and whom He so loved 
as to give His only begotten Son to take upon Him 
man's nature and to elevate Him as our brother to the 
sovereignty of the universe. Angels and archangels, 
principalities and powers of things in heaven and 
things in earth to bow before Him. 

What though our author invents a wonderful table; 
is it impracticable for God to create worlds fast enough 



114 BISHOP FOSTERS HERESY. 

to supply room for an unfallen, and hence an undying 
race? Let us direct his attention to the Milky Way, 
where 18,000,000 suns with their systems blaze and 
burn. And if our author still fears God's infinity 
should fail to take care of man's wonderful fecundity, 
let us call to our aid the Nebulae System, from which, 
certainly, infinite possibilities may be seen from which 
an Almighty God might contrive to keep pace with 
man's fecundity. 

11 Can man conceive beyond what God can do? 
Nothing but quite impossible is hard. 
He summons into being with like ease 
A whole creation, and a single grain. 
Speaks he the word ! A thousand worlds are born ! 
A thousand worlds ? There's space for millions more ; 
And in what space can His great fiat fail? 
Condemn me not. cold critic ! but indulge 
The warm imagination ; why condemn?" 

Or with Isaiah let us ask : " Have ye not known ? 
Have ye not heard ? It is He that sitteth upon the 
circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as 
grasshoppers. That stretcheth out the heavens as a 
curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in." 
Isa. 4: 21, 22. 

We do not claim to be good at figures, and must be 
excused if we fail to see with our author (page 267): 
" In the space of a few years not merely crowd the 
entire surface of the earth, but would pile it higher 
than the utmost known heavens if death did not cut 
short their existence," and hence, "Nothing is more 
certain or obvious than that He who originated the 



COMPARED WITH OTHER HERESIES. I 1 5 

realm of life, and appointed its fecundity, appointed 
death as its necessary concomitant." 

The New York " Christian Advocate" of November 
8th, 1888, says : 

" A minister of Baltimore computes on the basis 
given in the Apocalypse that heaven contains 5,759,- 
750,000,000 rooms, each one being nineteen by six- 
teen feet in dimension. One of our early Methodist 
ministers preached a sermon on the subject in which 
he stated that every saint would have better accommo- 
dations than are given in the best rooms of a first-class 
hotel. Orson Pratt, the great Mormon, computed the 
room in acres ; told the people of Salt Lake City to be 
faithful in agriculture, for they would get the benefit 
of it in the New Jerusalem. Such misuses of figures 
of speech were common in olden times, but to find 
any person at present using them otherwise than to 
obtain from them the fundamental ideas of grandeur, 
glory and reward, is surprising." 

OUR AUTHOR'S FOURTH ARGUMENT. 

" For man's natural mortality (page 267) my fourth 
argument is that death existed before sin and could 
not, therefore, be penal." " The historical argument, 
like the two preceding, is independent and in itselt 
conclusive." 

Our author here produces arguments to show that 
death ravaged the whole earth b.efore man came upon 
it and, therefore, it could not come as a consequent ol 



u6 bishop Foster's heresy. 

sin, and he boastfully concludes, " Thus sin, which en- 
tered the world by one man, is new, while death is 
ancient. The cause cannot be subsequent to the 
effect." 

St. Paul says, Romans, 5:12: " By one man sin 
entered into the world and death by sin ; and so death 
passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." Verse 
17, "By one man's offence death reigned by one." 
Rev. Dr. Adam Clark says on this : " Death is here 
personified, and is represented as reigning over the 
human race, and death, of course, reigns unto death; 
he is known as reigning by the destruction of his 
subjects." 

St. Paul, I Cor. 15:21: "For since by man came 
death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. 
For as in Adam all die," &c. Dr. Clark says upon 
this : " Mortality came by Adam, immortality by 
Christ. So sure as all have been subjected to natural 
death by Adam, so sure shall all be raised again by 
Christ Jesus. Mortality and immortality, on a general 
ground, are the subject of the Apostle's reasoning 
here." The reader may choose between these author- 
ities. St. Paul evidently is speaking of the origin of 
death to the human race ; he says : " death passed 
upon all men;" he does not say "sparrows," or "cod- 
fish." Our author, or St. Paul, including Dr. Adam 
Clark, must be wrong; and we have no hesitancy in 
saying that our author, and riot St. Paul, is wrong, 
and his error comes.from the fundamental mistake of 
his system : " Man is a spirit ; the body is as much an 



COMPARED WITH OTHER HERESIES. 117 

animal as was ever born in the woods;" hence he is a 
heretic, and teaches that ancient heresy, " Adam was 
created mortal, and would have died whether he 
sinned or not." 

And this fundamental error leads inevitably to the 
fourth charge against Pelagianism. 

The fourth charge against Pelagianism was, "That 
since neither by the death nor transgression of Adam 
the whole race dies, so neither will the whole human 
race rise again from the dead on account of Christ's 
resurrection." " Death entered into the very essence 
of the economy." — Page 251. " Death is born 01 
creation, not of retribution. It existed in the bosom 
of sinless, not sinning nature." — Page 262. " Thus 
sin, which entered the world ' by one man,' is new, 
while death is ancient." — Page 268. 

Hence the race does not die because Adam sinned, 
nor because he died, but by nature; therefore it is im- 
proper to say, " By man came death ;" " In Adam all 
die," and likewise it is improper to say, "By man 
came also the resurrection of the dead ;" " Even so in 
Christ shall all be made alive." Hence our author 
very consistently says, page 256 : " The animal which 
served it well can serve it no longer ; will have led 
the immortal to the door of his heaven, into which it 
cannot go, and, being no longer useful, but a clog and 
a shackle, will be left at the gate." " There are no 
facts which point to a return to life of the body which 
is destroyed." — Page 32. We need not quote further, 
and will rest. 



ii8 bishop Foster's heresy. 

second, his swedenborgianism. 

Emanuel Swedenborg was a good man, a philoso- 
pher, a theologian, and a man of science. At the 
age of 57, A. D. 1745, he suddenly became a "seer," 
and spent the rest of his days as an interpreter of the 
mysteries of God, angels, the soul, and especially rev- 
elation, with heaven and hell. Wherein he followed 
the word of God he is all right. He may be right in 
many of his speculations. But that he is wrong, and 
even ludicrous, in many more, is certainly conceded. 
Now, in comparing our author with Swedenborgian- 
ism, we do not claim by any means that he has been 
led into all of his vagaries, but we are sure that he 
has drank either from the same stream with Sweden- 
borg, or drank from him, for he is so near alike upon 
the subject-matter found in " Beyond the Grave/' that 
they show the same parentage. We shall quote from 
the two authors fairly but briefly, and let our readers 
draw their own inference. We can only judge the 
tree by the fruit it bears. There is one very marked 
difference between our author and Mr. Swedenborg, viz : 
Their source of knowledge. Our author says : " We 
do not know that death does not end all," page 17 ; and 
page 18: "We may have exact truth, some truth, or 
no truth at all." 

While Mr. Swedenborg says he has experimental 
knowledge, page 294: " But to converse with spirits, 
and to be with them as one of their number, has 
been granted me even in full wakefulness of the 



COMPARED WITH OTHER HERESIES. I 1 9 

body, and this now for many years." Page 292 : 
" That man is a spirit has been taught me by much 
experience. . . . That I might be confirmed in 
this, I have been permitted to converse with almost 
all whom I ever knew when they lived in the body. 
. . . That I might be sure of it and bear testimony 
to its truth." 

Since our author rejects the evidence of the forty 
days of Christ's testimony that he was in the resur- 
rection state, we can see how he consequently must 
admit that he does not know that death does not end 
all ; and that "we may have exact truth, some truth, or 
no truth at all." Hence I am at a loss to see how he 
knows anything at all. He says, like Swedenborg, 
that man is a spirit, but since he does not tell us how 
he knows, we must take it for granted that he has 
been with Swedenborg and learned of him. A few 
quotations will demonstrate at least a possible source 
of our author's information. 

Our author says " man is a spirit." And page 78, 
" Beyond the Grave," " You see that I am making 
everything of the fact that I am not my body. That 
is everything to me." This, as I have shown in Chap- 
ters I and II, is the whole drift of the volume. Mr. 
Swedenborg (" Heaven and Hell," page 289) says : 
" Whoever duly considers the subject, may know that 
the body does not think, because it is material ; but 
that the soul does think, because it is spiritual. The 
soul of man, about the immortality of which so many 
have written, is his spirit ; for this is immortal as to 
all that pertains to it. It is this also which thinks in 



120 BISHOP FOSTERS HERESY. 

the body, for it is spiritual; and what is spiritual re- 
ceives what is spiritual, and lives spiritually, which is 
to think and to will. All the rational life, therefore, 
which appears in the body, belongs to the spirit, and 
nothing of it to the body ; for the body, as was said 
above, is material ; and materiality, which is proper to 
the body, is added, and almost as it were adjoined, to 
the spirit in order that the spirit of man may live, and 
perform uses in the natural world, whereof all things 
are material and in themselves void of life. And 
since what is material does not live, but only what is 
spiritual, it may be evident that whatever lives in 
man is his spirit, and that the body only serves it, as 
an instrument is subservient to a living, moving force. 
It is said, indeed, of an instrument, that it acts, moves, 
or strikes ; but to believe that these acts are those of 
the instrument, and not of him who acts, moves or 
strikes by means of it, is a fallacy. Since everything 
that lives in the body, and from life acts and feels, 
belongs exclusively to the spirit, and nothing of it to 
the body, it follows that the spirit is the real man ; or, 
what is similar, that man considered in himself is a 
spirit." Again, page 295 : " Man is not man by virtue 
of the body, but by virtue of the spirit." Also, page 
299 : " Man is man by virtue of his spirit, and not by 
virtue of his body." 

Now, who can fail to see our author's exact simili- 
tude ? Read " Beyond the Grave," page 26, and 
on : " The proposition asserts, not simply that there 
are these two parts to man — an organism of earth and 
an indwelling spirit — but that the deepest truth, the 



COMPARED WITH OTHER HERESIES. 121 

very essence of his manhood is, that he is a spirit/' 
" The form is wholly destitute of power of any kind. 
. . . It is idiotic and beastly ; it neither sees, nor 
hears, nor tastes ; it is purely an instrument and serv- 
ant. The spirit, on the other hand, is a proprietor 
and master." " The material being is simply an in- 
strumental arrangement, or organism, for the use of 
the deeper man, which is a spiritual being, and is 
separate and distinct from the material organization ; 
as separate and distinct as from any tools which he 
uses and employs." " He is as really distinct from 
the hand as he is from the saw or hammer, or brush 
or pen." Given this similarity of teaching on the 
fundamental question, " man is a spirit," it is but 
natural that the final outcome shall be very much 
alike. 

Mr. Swedenborg says (page 307, " Heaven and 
Hell "): " When a man passes from the natural into 
the spiritual world, he takes with him all things be- 
longing to him as a man, except his terrestrial body. 
... In a word, when man passes from one life into 
the other, or from one world into the other, it is just 
as if he passed from one place to another ; and he 
carries with him all things which he possessed in him- 
self as a man ; so that it cannot be said that man after 
death — which is only the death of the terrestrial body 
— has lost anything that belonged to himself." Our 
author says (page 248, " Beyond the Grave"): " There 
is nothing that pertains to a body, either its necessities 
or pleasures, that would be agreeable to carry up 



122 BISHOP FOSTERS HERESY. 

through eternity. " "The soul or self must in some 
way attain deliverance from physical thraldom." 

Again (" Beyond the Grave," page 243): " Analogy, 
therefore, leads us to conclude that when the human 
body is dissolved, the immaterial principle by which 
it was animated continues to think and act, either in a 
state of separation from all body, or in some material 
vehicle to which it is ultimately united, and which 
goes off with it at death." 

Again (page 158), our author says: "The resur- 
rection, therefore, is deliverance from the gross, ma- 
terial body, and resumption without it in the spiritual 
world." 

Let us now give close attention to the similarity of 
Mr. Swedenborg and our author, especially on the 
resurrection. Mr. Swedenborg (page 295, "Heaven 
and Hell") says : " When the body is no longer capa- 
ble of performing its functions in the natural world, 
corresponding to the thoughts and affections of its 
spirit, which are from the spiritual world, then a man 
is said to die. But still the man does not die, but is 
only separated from the corporeal part ; for the man 
himself lives. It is said the man himself lives, be- 
cause man is not man by virtue of the body," &c. 
" Hence it is evident that when man dies, he only 
passes from one world into another ; hence it is that 
death signifies resurrection and continuance of life/* 
" By resuscitation is meant the drawing forth of the 
spirit from the body, and its introduction into the 
spiritual world, which is commonly called resurrec- 



COMPARED WITH OTHER HERESIES. 12$ 

tion." Our author describes the resurrection in sim- 
ilar language (" Beyond the Grave," page 182): " The 
resurrection is the standing again after death ; the 
body of the resurrection is the body with which the 
spirit is clothed for its celestial life. [Listen.] The 
organizing life principle is uninterrupted and identical. 
It begins in the natural and weaves its curious integ- 
uments of dust for earthly use ; it weaves the new 
robes for the departing soul ; it fashions the celestial 
organism." Again (" Beyond the Grave," page 224) : 
" The soul wakes up in the future world, or passes 
into it, as it passes from one city to another, with 
as little interruption of its faculties. In its transfer, 
however, it loses the services of the physical senses. 
They have finished their functions and disappear. 
How this affects its relations to material affairs, we do 
not know ; possibly it interrupts commerce with this 
life entirely; and on many accounts it may be desirable 
that it should ; but if there is the loss of the gross, 
physical sense, we may infer there is the acquisition 
of a higher order of sensorium, by which it becomes 
related to the spiritual realm." Now, if our author 
could add the personal experience of Mr. Sweden- 
borg, on page 200, we might be led to accept his au- 
thority: "I have also conversed with some two days 
after their decease, and have told them that prepara- 
tions were now being made for their interment. They 
replied that their friends did well to reject that which 
had served them so well for a body and its uses in the 
world; and they wished me to say that they were not 
dead, but alive, being men now, just the same as be- 



124 bishop Foster's heresy. 

fore, and that they had only migrated from one world 
to another, and that they were not conscious of hav- 
ing lost anything, since they were in a body, and in 
possession of bodily senses as before/' 

Foster — " The animal, being no further useful, but 
a clog, will be left at the gate." 

Swedenborg — " When man dies, he only passes 
from one world into another; or passes from one 
place to another." 

Foster — " The soul wakes up in the future world, 
or passes into it, as it passes from one city to another." 

S. — " But the man does not die; but is only sepa- 
rated from the corporeal part ; for the man himselt 
lives." 

F. — " The organizing life principle is uninterrupted 
and identical." 

S. — " When they are dead they appear to them- 
selves to be in a body." 

F. — " It will be clothed upon with a new form when 
the old one perishes." 

S. — " The departed said that their friends did well 
to reject that which had served them well for a body." 

F. — " I wish to put on record here that, for myself, 
there is nothing that ever belonged to my body that 
creates in me the least desire to ever see it again." 

S. — Page 352 : "That the spirit of man, after its 
separation from the body, is, itself a man." "Man 
was created to become an angel." — Page 203. 

F. — Page 185 : " It is revealed that they are spirits, 
freed from physical drudgery." 

" It is that of a soul forever growing." " A vast 



COMPARED WITH OTHER HERESIES. 125 

community of spirits." "Ages fly away." "^Eons 
and cycles." " I am one of that immortal host." 
"Thou, Gabriel, I shall stand where thou standest." 

" These are some of the passages taken alternately 
from our author and Mr. Swedenborg. We are satis- 
fied that they show conclusively that the authors are, 
in the main, in entire harmony on the nature of man 
and of his resurrection, which our author is candid 
enough to admit. On page 158, after quoting the doc- 
trine held by the " New Church Faith," he says : 
11 This view, we do not doubt, is, in the main, in the 
direction of truth." We are sure there can be no 
doubt but our author is, in the main, Swedenborgian 
as to his spirit-man and his spirit-resurrection. 

But the great, solemn question remains unanswered. 
How can a Methodist Bishop be in such hearty ac- 
cord with Mr. Swedenborg, and so directly opposite 
to Mr. Wesley, and yet retain his episcopal office in 
the Methodist Church? Why not join the "New 
Jerusalem Church?" Why employ his high and 
holy office to spread heresy, instead of driving it away, 
both publicly and privately, as he solemnly promised 
in his ordination vows ? What does the church mean 
by sitting supinely by and allowing any man, much 
less a Bishop, to sow broadcast such rank heresy 
through the length and breadth of our church? O, 
God, how can it be that it has come to this ? Can it 
be possible that it has come to this, that our church is 
about to leave the well of living water for cisterns that 
can hold no water ? Is Thy word so deficient that 
we need a philosophical dreamer to rise, and with 



126 bishop Foster's heresy. 

spirit gibberings, to teach us how the dead arise? O, 
God, shall we be turned aside from the " life, the truth, 
the way," for the muttering and stuttering of a 
cracked-brain philosopher ? Great God, forbid. 

Need I pause to show that Pelagianism and Swe- 
denborgianism are untrue ? Has it come to this, that 
these teachings must be met in the very heart of the 
Methodist Church ; and that one without position, or 
name, or money, or patronage must meet, single- 
handed, unpanoplied, a great giant, clothed in all the 
authority of a Bishop of the greatest church on earth, 
clothed from head to foot in an armor more impreg- 
nable than the Goliath David met? No; we will not 
stop here to show that these doctrines are untrue, and 
contrary to the teaching of the best philosophy and 
the united voice of the universal church, as well as 
diametrically contrary to the teaching of God's im- 
mutable word. But we will go out, like David of old, 
with our simple sling and smooth stones in the name 
of our God, and slay this great giant, who for ten 
years has gone out and defied the host of our God. 



CHAPTER VI. 

SOME OF OUR AUTHOR'S INCONSISTENCIES. 
FIRST INCONSISTENCY. 

The first inconsistency of our author is in the plan 
and scope of his book. . If he had simply given us a 
philosophical treatise on man as a spiritual being, we 
would have let it pass, for only philosophers would 
have read it, and it would have done but little harm. 
But, like many authors, he only gives a little philoso- 
phy, and then draws conclusions, which a true philoso- 
phy will not admit, and in these conclusions he strikes 
a practical blow at the resurrection of our bodies, 
which the most illiterate may read to their damage. 
If he had given us a treatise upon the resurrection, 
pure and simple (i. e. y if he had put his teaching in 
undisguised simplicity on the resurrection), the church 
would have risen in arms long ago ; and only because 
of this inconsistent mixing and covering has the 
heresy been taken, covered by a sweet sentimentalism, 
a beautiful rhetoric, and the logic of a sophist ; e.g., 
" Nothing is more certain than that Jesus taught as 
one of his cardinal truths the doctrine of the resur- 
rection of the dead. Disbelief of that truth is as in- 



128 bishop Foster's heresy. 

disputable heresy as disbelief in the divine mission ot 
Jesus." — Page 151. " When finally it, the body, sick- 
ens and dies, and becomes unresponsive to our cries 
of affection, we say our friend is dead." . . . "We 
consign the quickly decaying form to the grave. 
We know that it soon moulders to dust. There is 
not a single sign that it will ever germinate, or return 
to life. There is every indication that it never will." 
— Page 23. 

The two pages are eternally inconsistent. No 
sophistry can make his transmigration of the soul out 
of the old body into a new one, when the old one 
perishes, a resurrection of the dead. 

SECOND INCONSISTENCY. 

The second inconsistency consists in darkening 
council on the subject of our knowledge. Pages 16 
and 17, he says: " However it may awaken sur- 
prise, truth demands that we should make the con- 
fession that we do not know that death does not end 
all," &c. Page 12: "No greater proof can exist than 
a ' thus saith the Lord ' — not even our direct cognition; 
but we must know that it is a 'thus saith the Lord;' 
and we intuitively know that between a 'thus saith 
the Lord ' and our immediate cognitions, there never 
will or can be contradiction." ' 

How can these two assertions be consistent ? " We 
do not know that death does not end all." " No 
greater proof can exist than a * thus saith the Lord ;' ' 
not even our direct cognition. The Lord said (John 



SOME INCONSISTENCIES. I 29 

5 :28): " Marvel not at this, for the hour is coming in 
the which all that are in their graves shall hear his 
voice and shall come forth." Now, does our author 
teach that we do not know that death does not end 
all? or do we not know that this quotation is a " thus 
saith the Lord?" This kind of inconsistency should 
not be in a book that treats upon so grave a subject, 
and his warning from the religious and secular press, 
as well as from ministers and laymen, should have 
opened his eyes to see the inconsistency. And yet, in 
the face of this warning, and of his own statement 
(page 12), he goes on to say (page 17) : " Where he is, 
or that he is at all, is absolutely unknown to us. Our 
consciousness is silent on the subject," &c. This not 
only makes him inconsistent with himself, but also 
with truth. Our consciousness is not silent on the 
subject; "We know that if our earthly house were 
dissolved we have a building of God, an house not 
made with hands, eternal in the heavens." — St. Paul, 
II Cor. 5:1. "Knowing that He which raised up 
the Lord Jesus, shall raise up us also by Jesus." 
Again, " I know whom I have believed." If our au- 
thor had said that by our direct cognition, or by our 
five senses, we have no positive knowledge that death 
does not end all, we would acquiesce ; but when he, in 
the face of his assertion on page 12, goes on to say: 
"Our consciousness is silent on the subject," and rele- 
gates all our knowledge outside of sense perceptions 
to the ghostland of mere guess work, as on page 18 : 
" In mere opinions or beliefs there may be exact truth, 



130 bishop Foster's heresy. 

some truth, or no truth at all ; or possibly there may 
be some truth and some error in each case." 

Because we have never touched, tasted, smelt, seen, 
or heard the life beyond the grave, is that an argu- 
ment that our consciousness must be silent on the 
subject ? Is there no road by which our conscious- 
ness may know truth but by the five senses ? If this 
is so we may well admit that " we do not know that 
death does not end all ;" for we never knew that any- 
one, except some crazy Swedenborg, claimed to know 
by sense perception that death did not end all. Then 
why should our author make the marvelous statement 
that we don't know simply because the sense percep- 
tion fails to reach out across the river of death, and 
fails to touch with her tentacles the trees of life on the 
other shore? 

Why should he jump to the conclusion that 
there is no knowledge of God because we cannot 
see, or hear, or by the five senses commune with 
Him? O, eternal shades, can it be? We say it 
is inconsistent for our author to say that our con- 
sciousness is silent ; and that if death does not end all 
we don't know it, and that our belief of it is only a 
guess so, a maybe so, with some truth, or no truth at 
all, and that our religion only furnishes a clue by 
which we hold on with " misgivings, doubts and 
fears." We say it is inconsistent with truth, and the 
known consciousness, or conscious knowledge of the 
ages. We admit that conscious knowledge is the 
only real knowledge that we have. The five senses 



SOME INCONSISTENCIES. I 3 I 

are but five avenues by which we know the outer 
world. 

When my fingers touch a solid substance, and the 
nerves have reported to the inner conscious ego, 
then I know the substance is hard ; but are these five 
avenues the only ones that bring knowledge to this 
knower? Then what has man but an inheritance 
common with the animal world ? 

If this is true, then we are shut up to " misgivings, 
doubts and fears " with a vengeance, and his following 
pages are all mere speculations. 

But it is false. There are other avenues beside 
these five, and our consciousness is not silent on this 
grave subject. 

John Jones is an orphan. He was born on a sum- 
mer evening and found on a gentleman's front steps. 
He is now twenty-one years of age. Ask him : " Who 
was your father and who was your mother ?" " I 
don't know." " Well, John, did you have any father 
and mother?" Can there be anything but an affirma- 
tive answer? John knows he had a mother and 
father, but how does he know ? He never saw, heard, 
or by any of the five senses learned it. No one need 
ever tell him, and yet he knows that he had parents. 
John may know a great many things, but he will never 
know anything more thoroughly and satisfactorily 
than this. Nothing that will have less " misgivings, 
doubts and fears," though he may be a very learned 
man. Is his consciousness silent upon this subject? 

This is knowledge that is perfectly satisfactory to me. 
Now, our author says (page 17): " John, you may 



132 BISHOP FOSTERS HERESY. 

imagine that you know that you had parents when 
you were a little fellow, and we are not anxious to 
dispossess you of the pleasing delusion ; it cannot 
harm you." 

John Jones' knowledge, that he had parents, is not 
intuitive, but inferential. His universal experience 
from his senses have informed him that it is so in the 
case of all other men and women ; and that, therefore, 
there is an overwhelming probability and assurance 
that it must be so with him. This is an induction, 
not an immediate, but a mediate, knowledge ; but it 
is just as good and as effective as any direct experi- 
ence ; and both in popular language and in science 
this form of assurance, when very strong, and when 
not a tithe as strong as this, is called knowledge. So 
from Scripture and the testimony of dying saints to 
whom the heavens have been opened, we have such 
irresistible proof of immortal life beyond this that 
the assurance of it is as strong as any knowledge the 
senses can give ; and far better supported rationally 
than anything affirmed, or seemingly affirmed, by the 
senses of any one individual. The individual may be 
mistaken. He may be under some hallucination. He 
may easily misinterpret his senses. But when he 
listens to an unbroken series of testimonies from all 
ages, including those of the inspired Word, there is no 
reasonable ground for doubt or question. It is ir- 
rational and perverse to doubt ; and to the spiritual 
and devout mind, doubt is impossible. This is so 
strong that he calls it in accordance with the common, 
as well as scientific use of language, knowledge. It 



SOME INCONSISTENCIES. I 33 

is a true, rational knowledge. Hence, St. Paul says : 
" For we know that if this earthly house of our taber- 
nacle be dissolved, we have a building of God, a house 
not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." For a 
Methodist Bishop to contradict this, and say we do 
not know, is a singular and extraordinary course, to 
say the least ; and for anyone to say it, is either to 
express an unspiritual skepticism, or to use words in 
a peculiar and unadvisable way. 

Then there is such a thing as intuitive knowledge, 
sometimes called innate ; and I contend that we have 
a spiritual faculty of intuition, most largely developed 
in the most spiritual minds, by which we immediately 
discern the truth of the great principle of the immor- 
tality of moral issues, and that the Bible must be true 
in affirming this, and the consequent immortality of 
the righteous and the wicked. 

Innate — i. Inborn ; native ; natural. 2. Originating 
in, or derived from, the constitution of the intellect, as 
opposed to being acquired from experience. — Noah 
Webster. 

Has our author ever heard of innate knowledge ? 
Who will tell how much of human knowledge is 
innate ? Who will tell which is the most reliable 
knowledge, innate or acquired ? Is it a pleasing 
delusion ? 

Is our author mistaken when he says (page 12): 
" No greater proof can exist than a ' thus saith the 
Lord/ not even our direct cognition ?" Or is he mis- 
taken and inconsistent when he says (page 17): " We 
do not know but death ends all ; our consciousness is 



134 BISHOP FOSTERS HERESY. 

silent on the subject?" Is he correct when he says 
(page 131): "That God is, I know ; my intuitions and 
consciousness touch Him ?" Why and how should 
he have a consciousness and know God, and yet not 
know that death does not end all ? Why rest on 
God but be full of doubts, misgivings and fears on the 
other? O, palpable inconsistency! 

On the lower peninsula of New Jersey there is a 
famous watering place, called Cape May City. We 
were brought up within thirty miles of it; we have 
spent all our life within New Jersey; we have often 
been within twenty miles of it, and often been on 
the West Jersey Railroad and heard the cry, This 
car goes to Cape May City ; in fact, we have some 
relations who live there, and we have been privileged 
to meet them frequently, but still we have never been 
there; we have never seen, heard, touched, tasted or 
smelt Cape May City ; therefore, according to our 
author, we do not know that there is such a city. 
" However it may awaken surprise," we must make 
the confession that w r e do not know that there is such 
a city as Cape May. This is materialism with a ven- 
geance. Now, we do not claim to know that there is 
such a city by our own sense perceptions, but we will 
not admit that, therefore, we do not know positively 
that there is such a city. We do know that there is 
a Cape May City in New Jersey. We have never 
been in London, or Rome, or Jerusalem; therefore, 
according to our author, we do not know that there 
are such cities. We have never seen George Wash- 
ington, Napoleon, King Herod or Jesus Christ; there- 



SOME INCONSISTENCIES. I 35 

fore we do not know that they ever existed. For the 
inhabitants of Genoa and of Europe to doubt Chris- 
topher Columbus when he said there was an undis- 
covered continent across the western sea, was very 
sensible ; but for us who have never been in Europe, 
to doubt the existence of Europe, is simply impossi- 
ble. So, for the inhabitants of Jerusalem, yea, 01 
the disciples themselves, to doubt the fact of the 
dead Jesus coming back to life, was reasonable, after 
they had seen him hanging dead, and afterward pre- 
pared him for burial. We don't wonder even at 
Thomas saying, " Unless I shall put my finger in the 
prints of the nail, and thrust my hand into his side, I 
will not believe;" but after that was done, and after 
every possibility of deception was swept away, it was 
impossible that they should not know ; and for our 
author to say: "There is not a single fact within our 
reach that furnishes us absolute knowledge, and that 
we do not know, therefore we are liable to have mis- 
givings, doubts and fears," is as foolish as for the 
Genoese to say now we do not know that there is a 
continent beyond the rolling sea, or for us to say we 
do not know there is a city in New Jersey called 
Cape May. This inductive knowledge is the great 
element and result of science, and the inspiration and 
guide of practical life. 

Man not only has a material nature by which he 
becomes acquainted with the outer world, but he has 
a rational nature by which he reasons, forms judg- 
ments and conclusions ; not only so., but he has a 
spiritual nature by which he comes in possession 01 



136 bishop Foster's heresy. 

knowledge of the spiritual world. I know that grass 
is green because I have seen it. The perfection of 
that knowledge will depend upon the perfection of 
my optic nerves. I know there is a city called Cape 
May because I have the power of forming proper 
conclusions without a personal physical knowledge of 
the city, and that knowledge will depend upon certain 
laws of evidence and certain powers of mind for the 
correctness of its knowledge. So in regard to the 
highest knowledge of the human understanding. 

Every effect must have a proper cause. John Jones 
knows that he must have had parents. We know 
the first parents must have had an adequate and 
proper cause. That first cause must be God, from 
whom the child received his powers. — See St. Paul 
before the philosophers of Athens. 

The spiritual nature of man has its knowledge. 
I know that I am. I know that I have a physical 
nature. I know that I have a rational mind. I know 
that I have a spiritual nature. I commune with God. 
God touches my inner consciousness. We are free to 
admit that all human knowledge is very imperfect as 
to detail and in non-essential particulars. Frorn the 
least to the greatest; from the molecule to the moun- 
tain, from insect to man, from man to archangel, all 
knowledge is finite ; for the infinite one has taught us 
that as the heavens are above , the earth, so his ways 
are above ours. All our knowledge is human except 
the thus saith the Lord, and even that is handed to 
us in human vessels ; but it is the best we have, and 
we know it is a sufficient light to guide us in all 



SOME INCONSISTENCIES. 137 

essential particulars safely. But we claim this is as 
much so of the evidence of the five senses as it is 01 
the other avenues to our consciousness. Who doesn't 
know that for ages to our race the sun circled around 
this small globe ? Who doesn't know to how large 
an extent the railroad men are color-blind ? Who 
will tell us how color-blind those are who set up 
the standard by which others are tried ? So we 
might go through all lines of human knowledge and 
point out mistakes. But shall we say because human 
knowledge is imperfect, and in non-essentials liable to 
error, therefore we will not follow 7 the best light we 
have? Shall we join the idealist and say, because 
we cannot perfectly understand the material world, 
therefore, there is no material world ? With Bishop 
Berkley shall we say : " There are no trees, or rocks, or 
stars," because we cannot know all there is in the ma- 
terial world ? Or shall we say : " All, therefore, 
which really exists is spirit, or 'the thinking principle ' 
— ourselves, our fellowmen, and God." O, how fool- 
ish. What an idle dreamer. I don't w r onder that his 
hypochondriacal tendency at length fully showed 
itself. But if idealism, which can boast the greatest 
names, is unreasonable, what shall we say of our 
author's teaching ? If Bishop Berkley can sweep away 
our material universe, and if our author can sweep 
away all knowledge except that which comes through 
the five senses, and leave all other knowledge only 
full of doubts, fears and misgivings, then is not Hume 
about right in denying the reliableness of all human 
knowledge ? If only the sense-knowledge is reliable, 



138 bishop Foster's heresy. 

what need we care about it ? If, with one sweep, our 
author is to cast discredit upon all our innate, God- 
given knowledge ; if the knowledge of God, of Christ, 
and salvation, yea, of the future life, is but a myth, 
then I don't care whether Hume, Bishop Berkley, or 
Bishop Foster is right. What do I care about my 
finger-tips, or the size of my eye-ball, if my soul- 
knowledge is only full of " misgivings, doubts and 
fears ?" I say, avaunt, thou worse than a midnight 
ghoul ! Rob the grave of the dead if you will, but, 
oh, rob not the soul of its divine knowledge. 

If our author has no knowledge outside his finger 
tips, let him enjoy it if he will ; but he should not be 
allowed to sit in his high office and rob others of it. 

The Master said: " It is given unto you to know 
the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them 
it is not given." — Matt.13 : 1 1. " Blessed art thou, 
Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood hath not revealed 
it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven." — 
Matt. 16: 17. Jesus said: " I thank Thee, O Father, 
Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid 
these things from the wise and prudent, and hast re- 
vealed them unto babes." . . . " No man knoweth the 
Son but the Father ; neither knoweth any man the 
Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son 
will reveal Him!' — Matt. 11:25, 27. "If any man 
will do His will he shall know of the doctrine." — John 
7:17. St Paul says: "Eye hath not seen, nor ear 
heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, 
the things which God hath prepared for them that 
love Him. But God hath revealed them uuto us by 



SOME INCONSISTENCIES. I 39 

His spirit ; for the spirit searcheth all things, yea, the 
deep things of God. For what man knoiveth the 
things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in 
him ? Even so the things of God knoweth no man, 
but the spirit of God. Now we have received, not 
the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God, 
that we might know the things that are freely given 
us of God," &c. — I Cor ,2:9-11. St. Paul never saw 
Jesus in the flesh ; never touched his pierced hands 
or rifted side, but still he said: "I know whom I have 
believed." — II Tim. 1:12. Saul was on his way to 
Damascus; "And suddenly there shined round about 
him a light from heaven," &c. — Acts 9:3. Now, I 
ask, where has our author been that he should not 
have these things revealed unto him ? Is he one of 
the wise ones? Is it possible that he can be one of 
those spoken of in I Cor. 2:14: "The natural man 
receiveth not the things of the spirit of God ; for they 
are foolishness* unto him ; neither can he knozv them 
because they are spiritually discerned!' Also: "For 
the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. 
For it is written : He taketh the wise in their own 
craftiness." — I Cor. 3: 19 Let Rabbi Krauskopf teach 
"that it is of this present existence only that we have 
any positive knowledge, hence our sacred duty be- 
longs to this life," but I say it is inconsistent for a 
Christian Bishop or a Methodist to teach what our 
author does in regard to our knowledge of the super- 
sensible. It matters not to us whether knowledge 
comes to us "through the innate inspirations" with 
Plato which the Creator put there before birth, or like 



140 bishop Foster's heresy. 

Locke deny the reality of innate ideas altogether, and 
teach that a part of our knowledge is received from 
the cognition of the outer world, and the other part 
by the perception of the operations of our own minds. 
We claim that we do know that death does not end 
all with as correct a knowledge as that by which we 
know anything outside of our own conscious exis- 
tence. I am ; I exist ; I think ; and from this funda- 
mental basis we arrive at all knowledge; and of all 
the knowledge that comes to us none is so true, none 
so valuable as the knowledge of the life, death and 
resurrection of Jesus Christ, which is verified, not 
only in the Bible, but in our own most secret self, our 
own conscious nature. " Man believeth with the 
heart (inner consciousness) unto righteousness." I 
know there is a God, and that I have a soul which 
has met with God. They have met in the dark, it is 
true, but I have felt him., I know him, and with 
Charles Wesley we sing: 

" We know, by faith we know 

If this vile house of clay, 
This tabernacle sink below, 

In ruinous decay, 
We have a house above, 

Not made with mortal hands, 
And firm as our Redeemer's love 

That heavenly fabric stands." 

' ' We by his spirit prove, 
And know the things of God." 

" The spirit itself beareth witness with our spirits, 
that we are the children of God. And if children. 



SOME INCONSISTENCIES. I4I 

then heirs; heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ, 
that we may be also glorified together." — Romans 
8:16, 17. 

If, as Descartes says, as is represented by Huxley's 
Lay Sermons (page 324): "As the record of his 
progress tells us, he was obliged to confess that life 
is full of delusions ; that authority may err ; that tes- 
timony may be false or mistaken; that reason lands 
us in endless fallacies; that memory is often as little 
trustworthy as hope; that the evidence of the very 
senses may be misunderstood ; that dreams are real 
as long as they last, and what we call reality may be 

a long and restless dream What, then, is certain ? 

Our thoughts. ' I think, therefore, I am.' " And 
Mr. Huxley, on page 328, would reduce this certainty 
to just one-third, i. e., he would cancel the I, the there- 
fore, and leave " think," as the only knowledge. Now 
if " think " is the only really known knowledge, why 
should our author, a Christian philosopher, sweep 
away from our authorities, and single out our best 
and richest knowledge, and by one stroke blot them 
out forever, while holding to the lower and least valu- 
able, and the least provable knowledges with a death- 
less grasp ? Why cry out against the voice of the 
book, the church, the inner consciousness of the ages 
and say, "Truth demands that we should make the 
confession that we do not know that death does not 
end all?" — Page 16. Why don't he say that truth de- 
mands that we admit that we don't know anvthin^ ? 
Or, if the philosopher reduces our absolute knowl- 
edge to the bald "think," we may rest our religious 



142 bishop Foster's heresy. 

knowledge upon the experimental " know." If from 
this foundation stone of bare knowledge " think," the 
path may be traced out to all the lines of human in- 
telligence, so the Christian can rest upon his experi- 
mental " know," and from it follow the path out to all 
the fullness of the divine life in Christ Jesus. The 
blind man said: "I was blind; now I see." So, also, 
we "know" that we have passed from death 
unto life. I was dead, but am alive. I am just as 
conscious that I " know r ," as I am that I "think," and 
from this blessed inner conscious knowledge I can 
trace out my way into the clearest light along the line 
of innate knowledge and proper testimony until I do 
know that death does not, yea, cannot, end all. 

No, no. We do know with even more assurance 
than any other knowledge, that "if when we were 
enemies w r e were reconciled to God by the death ot 
His Son ; much more, being reconciled we shall be 
saved by his life." "That as sin hath reigned unto 
death, even so might grace reign through righteous- 
ness unto eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." 
— Rom. 5 : 10-21. "Knowing that Christ being raised 
from the dead, dieth no more," &c. ; " likewise 
reckon ye also yourselves alive unto God," &c. — 
Rom. 6:9-11. Thank God, it is given unto us "to 
know the mysteries of the kingdom." 

Are we wrong, then, in demanding that this shall 
not be incorporated in our body of divinity ? Shall we 
mix such untempered clay in our foundation stones ? 
We say, No ; never. Imagine in the future a discus- 
sion on which may hang the welfare of many souls. 



SOME INCONSISTENCIES. 1 43 

Rationalism having cursed the continent, already 
reaches across the sea for other conquests. Meth- 
odism must meet and conquer this foe to all right- 
eousness. But in the midst of the discussion, the 
rationalistic foe, after adducing its subtle arguments 
with the skill of a St. Paul, appealing to their own 
poets, appeals to Methodist authorities, and says, 
Bishop Foster, one of your own Bishops and theolo- 
gians, is frank enough to admit that " truth demands 
that we should make the confession that we do not 
know that death does not end all ;" and now, with 
this great Bishop, " If there are any who imagine 
that they know, we are not anxious to dispossess 
them of the pleasing delusion — it cannot harm them." 
Are we willing that any such false teaching shall 
be thrust into our face? We answer, No, it must 
not be. 

THIRD INCONSISTENCY. 

Notes. — Prof. Mitchell says : "Who shall reveal to us the 
true cosmography of the universe by which we are surround- 
ed ? It is the work of an Omnipotent Architect. Around us 
and above us rise sun and system, cluster and universe ; and I 
doubt not that in every region of this vast empire of God, 
hymns of praise and anthems of glory are rising and rever- 
berating from sun to sun, and from system to system, heard 
by Omnipotence alone across immensity and through eter- 
nity." 

Dr. Dick: " It is now considered by astronomers as highly 
probable, if not certain, from late observation, from the na- 
ture of gravitation, and other circumstances, that all the sys- 
tems of the universe revolve around one common centre ; 
and that this centre may bear as great a proportion, in point 



144 BISHOP FOSTERS HERESY. 

of magnitude, to the universal assemblage of systems, as the 
sun does to his surrounding planets. And since our sun is 
five hundred times larger than the earth and all other planets 
and their satellites taken together on the same scale, such a 
central body would be five hundred times larger than all the 
systems and worlds in the universe. If this is in reality the 
case, it may, with the most emphatic propriety, be termed 
The Throne of God. . . . Here the glorified body of the 
Redeemer may have taken its principal station as ' the head 
of all principalities and powers.' " — " Philosophy of a Future 
State," p. 224. 

Our author's third inconsistency consists in degrad- 
ing the body, or the material nature, of man. 

The ancient philosophers who had not our Chris- 
tian teaching, and believed the souls of men had a 
pre-existent origin and history, in which they fell 
and were cursed or punished by being placed in ma- 
terial bodies, to be delivered from which was their 
highest good, were consistent in looking upon their 
bodies and all material nature as low, evil and tem- 
porary. But I am at a loss to conceive how a Chris- 
tian philosopher, with the New Testament teaching of 
the dignity and holiness of the body, and that forever 
glorified by the second person of the divine trinity 
taking upon Him its nature, living, suffering, dying, 
rising, ascending in and glorifying it at the right 
hand of God the Father, where he lives in his glori- 
fied body, to die no more. " I was dead, but behold 
I am alive." And not only so, but the third person 
of the blessed trinity also glorifies the human body 
by condescending to make it his abode. 

" What, know ye not that your body is the temple 



SOME INCONSISTENCIES. 1 45 

of the Holy Ghost." — I Cor. 6:19. " Know ye not 
that ye are the temple of God. If any man defile the 
temple of God, him shall God destroy ; for the tem- 
ple of God is holy, which temple ye are." — I Cor. 
3: 16, 17. " Destroy this temple, and in three days I 
will raise it up again." " I beseech you, therefore, 
brethren, by the mercies of God that ye present your 
bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God." 
— Rom. 12:1. " Now the body is not for fornication, 
but for the Lord ; and the Lord for the body ; and 
God hath both raised up the Lord, and will also raise 
up us by his own power. Your body is the temple 
of the Holy Ghost, for ye are bought with a price. 
Therefore glorify God in your body and in your 
spirit, which are God's." " I pray God your whole 
spirit and soul and body be preserved." Thus the 
whole trend and spirit of the New Testament teach- 
ing are certainly very different from our author's teach- 
ing. Let me quote: Page 29, " The form (*. e., the 
body) is wholly destitute of power of any kind." 
[Strange, but where does the spirit get his power 
from? Whence his proprietorship?] " It would not 
continue to exist if left to itself." Sure ? Who knows 
who is first in this man ? " It must be fed, and 
clothed, and doctored." Yes ; but who doctors and 
feeds it ? And why don't the same one continue to 
feed and doctor it which opens the eyes first ? " It is 
idiotic." Alas, poor body ! My horse and dog are 
very intelligent ! This, to me, is a very serious 
charge. How about those memory plates that " were 
not material ?" Why, if it is the body merely that is 



146 bishop Foster's heresy. 

idiotic, should any of us be idiots ? Page 49 : " It is 
my slave. It cannot think for itself, so I must keep 
watch for it, clothe, feed, coddle, &c. I command the 
machine." Page 63 : " Some day I shall drop the 
machine and take wing." Page 161 : " Fact and 
reason teach us that it (the body) is only a definite 
quantity of oxygen and other gases." Page 182 : "I 
wish to put on record that there is nothing that ever 
belonged to my body that creates in me the least 
desire to ever see it again." Also, 256: "The animal 
. . . the clog, the shackle, will be left at the gate." 

How differently St. Paul writes (Rom. 8:23) : " And 
not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first 
fruits of the spirit ; even we ourselves groan within 
ourselves waiting for the adoption, to wit: the re- 
demption cf our bodies." Of course the Apostle Paul 
knew that the body, in its present condition, was 
cursed by sin the same as the spirit, and needed sanc- 
tifying, but he waited and groaned for its redemption, 
not its casting aside ; and well does he say that this 
weakness and corruptibleness came through sin ; 
"For since by man came death," "Death passed 
upon all men, for that all have sinned." And the re- 
demption was not from its material nature, but from 
its corruption and death. Hence he says : " In a mo- 
ment, in the twinkling of an eye, we shall be changed;" 
i. e. y glorified, redeemed, and made like unto his glori- 
ous body. As the electric spark changes the black 
steel into a flaming sun, so the divine Christ shall 
change this human body into the glories of the res- 
urrection, as Christ was transfigured, and his face 



SOME INCONSISTENCIES. 1 47 

shone brighter than the sun, even transfiguring his 
clothing. 

We claim that it is inconsistent for a follower of 
Christ to degrade the human body. Christ has ex- 
alted it. Christ brought it to life and ascended to the 
right hand of God with it, or else deceived the disci- 
ples. And the promise is that these (now) vile bodies 
shall be changed and made like his glorious body. 

Shall we then ignore this, and instead of a resur- 
rected, glorified human body, demand that we become 
spirits as God and angels ? 

We would not detract one iota from the possible 
glory of the spirit universe, but we do demur against 
insulting or degrading the material universe. We be- 
lieve they each have their own individuality and their 
own glory. They are not one, but two. Our author, 
with the ancient philosophers, seems to look with dis- 
dain upon the material universe. 

God created man out of the dust of the earth and 
breathed into him the breath of life, and man became 
a living being, thus uniting the spiritual and the ma- 
terial universes. Let us not, like the materialist, minify 
or ignore the spiritual universe; and on the other hand 
we should not swing to the other extreme and ignore 
or despise the material universe. It is not for us finite 
creatures to understand the infinite. It is inconsistent 
for the materialist to ignore the spiritual universe 
simply because it is supersensible, and in our present 
state of knowledge it lies above us, any more than 
the infinity of the material universe should be ig- 
nored. Who doesn't know that the more secret laws 



148 bishop Foster's heresy. 

of the material cosmos are as mysterious and super- 
sensible as the laws of the spirit world? How little 
we know of the secret laws and their influences in 
material nature. Suppose we reduce all nature to 
matter, eliminate spirit, what have we gained; do we 
know any more about the cause of things ? Are the 
paths into the secrets of our environments any more 
illuminated? Do the dark questions resolve them- 
selves? What is space, where its beginning and end- 
ing? Whence cometh matter? Where are its founda- 
tions ? What is life and whence its fountain ? What 
is death and what its beyond? What is attraction and 
gravitation? " Canst thou bind the sweet influences of 
Pleiades or loose the bands of Orion?" Has man 
learned the a b c of his material environment ? Do 
not the depths of the sea and of the earth remain 
unexplored, while the very atmosphere remains un- 
navigated ? What of other worlds ? What of the 
secret springs of all power, life, and light ? Shall 
science or human knowledge in its swaddling clothes 
dictate to us about a spiritual universe when it knows 
not the beginning of its own? How does the scientist 
know what lies beyond; and may not there be a door 
somewhere in the secrets of nature where light is 
born, and life opens its eyes, through which he may 
enter into the spirit universe? Somewhere where the 
spirit of God touches the secret springs of human 
consciousness, and man enters into the spiritual sun- 
rise? Or would it be any more satisfactory to claim 
that all intelligence must be material, no matter how 
attenuated, spiritual or ethereal? If we say man is 



SOME INCONSISTENCIES. 1 49 

only matter organized, developed from the lower 
forms, will it set bounds to developments in other 
undiscovered realms of the cosmos in the past ceons ? 

If man is a developed monkey, and he is to go on 
forever developing, who knows when the morning stars 
sang their first song, and the first beings began their 
onward course? Is it not then the boast of the 
ignorant, short-sighted, yea, the blind, to say there is 
no God, or spirit, or angel ? Most certainly. So, also, 
we gain nothing by running to the other extreme. 
Matter is of God. The material universe is great 
and grand. 

When our author says (page 29) : " The body is 
destitute of power, is idiotic, beastly, neither sees, nor 
hears, nor tastes." Would he teach that only spirit 
has power, life, mind ? Only spirit sees, hears, and 
tastes ? The grass, the trees, the bugs, the reptiles, 
the oyster, the jelly-fish, yea, all, save inorganic mat- 
ter, must have a spirit as well as a material nature. 
And what better is this than materialism ? 

No. " What God hath joined together let no man 
put asunder." There is a spiritual universe, and there 
is a material universe. Each separate and distinct. 
Each under and subject to its own laws. 

God, the infinite author of all, is a spirit. In His 
wisdom He concluded to create man from the material 
universe and to breathe His own spiritual nature into 
this material creation and thus marry the two uni- 
verses together as one unique being — Homo. And 
the whole Bible story, as well as our own experiences 
and observation, is to this effect. The incarnation, 



150 bishop Foster's heresy. 

the redemption, the death, resurrection, ascension and 
mediatorial reign of Jesus Christ are to this effect, and 
St. Paul most clearly and wonderfully sets forth this 
doctrine in I Cor. 15: "But now is Christ risen from 
the dead and become the first fruits of them that 
slept. For since by man came death, by man came 
also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam 
all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But 
every man in his own order : Christ the first fruits, af- 
terwards they that are Christ's at his coming," &c. 
"The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death." 
" But some man will say how are the dead raised up," 
&c. Can any unbiased man read this without seeing 
that St. Paul is writing about the glorious resurrection 
of the dead body, the material nature of man ? He 
is not writing about the spirit that does not die, but re- 
turns to God ; he is writing constantly about the 
body. Christ is risen from the dead. Joseph's new 
tomb is vacated. Death itself shall finally be de- 
stroyed. From verse 35 to 54 St. Paul gives one of 
the most beautiful and conclusive arguments ever 
penned that the dead shall live and that the body, the 
material nature, shall be changed, glorified, spiritual- 
ized. 

The question put by the objector is : " With what 
body do they come ?" There is no question about 
the spirit-nature of man, but it all relates to the re-liv- 
ing of the dead body. St. Paul had demonstrated 
that Christ had risen and that he was the first fruits, or 
pledge, of them that slept, and the unbelief that has 
always characterized the natural heart still cries, How 



SOME INCONSISTENCIES. I 5 I 

are the dead raised up and with what body do they 
come ? and the argument that was inspired and satis- 
factory to the heathen world, and has conquered the 
unbelieving world, should be strong enough to con- 
vince our author. (Verses 36 and 37.) 

St. Paul explains or illustrates the possibility of the 
dead body living ; in fact, except it die it cannot be 
quickened. (Verses 37 and 38.) He shows that it is 
not raised without death and destruction, as one 
might go and dig up a planted grain ; but that from 
this corruptible grain rises another according to the 
nature of the seed planted. Then in verses 39 to 41 
he shows by an entirely different figure the glory of 
the resurrection body. All flesh is not the same — 
men, beasts, fishes, birds. All bodies are not the 
same — terrestrial, celestial. The glory of one is ter- 
restrial, the other celestial. There is one glory of the 
sun, one of the moon, another of the stars. For one 
star differeth from another star in glory. So also is the 
resurrection of the dead. Hence how beautifully St. 
Paul blends the two figures to answer the question, 
How are the dead raised and with what body ? " It 
is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption. It 
is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory," &c. 

Our author shows his mental conflict, but still 
swayed by his system, cavils, then yields. Page 
179 he says: " Some make much account of the 
relative in this comparison. Not another body, we 
are told, but it, the same body. The grammatical con- 
struction would seem to imply this ; but is it certain 



152 bishop Foster's heresy. 

that it was the meaning in the writer's mind ? We 
doubt." 

Then follows an ignoble struggle to prove his doubt 
or to darken the Apostle's only meaning. I only 
notice one point. " The contrast is between the body 
a man has before death, and the body he has after 
death. It, the body, he has before death, is corrupt- 
ible. It, the body, he has after death, is incorruptible, 
they are not the same, but different. It is raised in 
incorruption." There is no point made at all. The 
Apostle tells us that they are not the same after death, 
and repeats it and emphasizes it, but he does say " it 
(the body) is sown in corruption ; it (the body) is raised 
in incorruption." " It is sown a natural body, it is 
raised a spiritual body," i. e. y the sown, corruptible, 
weak, dishonored, natural body, is changed in the 
resurrection to an incorruptible, strong, honorable, 
spiritual body. 

" Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of 
God. Behold, I show you a mystery. We shall not 
all (die) sleep, but we shall all be changed in a mo- 
ment, in the twinkling of an eye, &c; and the dead 
shall be raised incorruptible. And with John Wesley 
I say, " Now, by this mortal and this corruptible can 
only be meant that body which we carry about with 
us, and shall one day lay down in the dust." — Sermon. 
And further, with Mr. Wesley we can say, u Let death 
prevail over and pull down this house of clay, since 
God hath undertaken to rear it up again, infinitely 
more beautiful, strong and useful." Raised incor- 



SOME INCONSISTENCIES. I 53 

ruptible! raised in power! raised in glory! Yes, this 
mortal shall put on immortality, " when mortality 
is swallowed up of life, and this vile body changep 
and made like his own glorious body." As the 
coarser elements are fused and changed into the 
sparkling diamond, so this corruptible body shall be 
made incorruptible and set in the crown of our mighty 
Redeemer, to sparkle and shine as the stars forever 
and ever. O, glorious resurrection ! O, glorious ma- 
terial universe! Richter says that "An angel once 
took a man and stripped him of his flesh and lifted 
him up into space, to show him the glory of the uni- 
verse. When the flesh .was taken away the man 
ceased to be cowardly, and was ready to fly with the 
angel past galaxy after galaxy, and infinity after in- 
finity," &c. Finally this fleshless man exclaims, " End 
is there none of the universe of God." 

Come with me, not as a fleshless man ; come with 
me, not as a spirit guide, but come with me as w r e all 
actually go sweeping through this universe. Look 
out from our flying ship as we sail out upon the 
universal sea of space. We turn our faces toward the 
sun, whose bright beams shed such a wonderful sea 
of material glory over us, that all nature is hid save 
this effulgence and our own ship. Ere we can exam- 
ine the ship on which we sail, we turn our back upon 
the sun, and when her glory kisses the very clouds 
into gold, we begin to look out through the evening 
twilight upon the vast ocean of trackless ether, upon 
which we are sailing, and now thousands, yea, millions 
of ships like our own heave in sight, but lo ! before 



154 BISHOP FOSTERS HERESY. 

we have had time to hail our fellow sailors from the 
many beautiful ships, they begin to fade from sight, 
and the glorious king of day bursts upon our view. 
But our eyes have been opened to the immensity of 
the material universe, and on we sweep three hundred 
and sixty-five days until we make the magnificent 
sweep away, away round th. sun, millions of miles. 

Let us visit some of our neighboring ships that sail 
in our own fleet. Let us step over to a near ship, beau- 
tiful Venus, only twenty-six millions of miles away. 
Hail ! thou fair goddess of the sea, what are thy di- 
mensions and whither sailest thou ? And we learn 
that this ship is nearly as large as our own and bound 
on the same voyage. Let us sail through that two 
hundred sail of asteroids, only stopping to note that 
they seem to sail as safely as though they were as 
large as the earth. Hail ! Jupiter, thou king of gods! 
five hundred millions of miles away. Thou art a 
glorious ship. Our ship seems but a yawl-boat beside 
thy volume of thirteen hundred earths, and glorified 
by four kingly servants, clothed in red, yellow and 
blue, sweeping on around the sun in over eleven 
years on one voyage. O, beautiful emblem of the 
majesty of the material worlds! But we must not 
tarry. Hail, Saturn ! We beg pardon for calling 
Jupiter the king of gods, for thou art far in his 
ascendency. We bow at thy feet. Thy majesty over- 
whelms us ; thy mighty form, thy glorious rings, 
thy eight moons revolving in ever-perfect obedience 
to thee, proclaim thy majesty is sublimity itself. Hail, 
Uranus ! Hail, Neptune ! Two billions of miles 



SOME INCONSISTENCIES. I 55 

away ! How long is thy voyage ? Over one hun- 
dred and sixty-four years around the sun ! 

Come with me as the comet rushes on from the 
sun for a thousand years out into space, and ask what 
worlds, what spheres ! Come with me as the sun, 
with her accompanying fleet of ships, sails on her 
great voyage for a million years, and ask what mighty 
fleets are these that accompany us over this infinite 
sea ! Hail, Arcturus ! Hail, Polaris ! Hail, thou 
mighty constellations of ships ! Hail, thou voyagers 
over this unsounded sea! Whither goest thou? Art 
thou spirits ? What is thy nature ? Where is thy 
home ? Whither wanderest thou ? Tell me, oh thou 
infinite, unbounded, unknown and unknowable uni- 
verse! " end of creation is there none? 5 ' yea, end of 
the beginning is there none ? What is thy mission? 
Whence comest thou ? If thou art but beastly, deaf 
and dumb ! if matter in its highest formation is but 
beastly and idiotic ! what art thou for ? If man's 
body is but a clog, a curse, why the material uni- 
verse? If God is a spirit, He cannot need the beastly 
matter. If angels are spirits, they cannot need idiotic 
matter. If man is a spirit, and only groans to be rid 
of matter, why, I ask, is the material universe ? Do 
angels and pure spirits need cities with streets and 
mansions? Is not vacated space without a throbbing 
atom of idiotic matter enough for them ? 

If the law of all material nature is to live a season 
and then die, as our author maintains ; if it was in- 
tended that man should die, why was he created such 
a being ? Why allied to matter ? Why God's spirit 



156 bishop Foster's heresy. 

breathed into matter? Had the angelic race proven 
a failure ? And in order to improve the race, spirits 
were put into mud machines to improve them, or 
why this race struggle and awful tragedy? 

If the material universe is so "ignoble, idiotic, 
beastly;'' if the human body is but a helpless ma- 
chine, only a quantity of oxygen and other gases, 
and only for a temporary cage, instrument, which is a 
clog, burden, hindrance, and must soon be shed as a 
snake sheds his skin, left in the grave never to rise, 
why was our author's precious angel baby put into 
such a mud machine, cage, and encumbered by such 
a clog? If this cage is such a prison, so beastly and 
idiotic, why not let it be a beast, and die and be 
buried like other beasts. Why put a "pure," sweet, 
" beautiful" angel baby, "after fifteen days," into this 
beastly little 'animal ? Yes, if the body is such a 
beastly, sickly, lazy, good-for-nothing little cur, why 
force the heavenly innocent into such foul company ? 

Our author admits that this beastly body is neces- 
sary for a time, and that the spirit is to a large extent 
dependent upon it (page 107; also page 253), "At first 
bodies are indispensable." " Bodies serve as material 
shrines in which to posit souls," &c, &c. 

But why angels should be posited or planted of 
necessity in mud cel 7 s, we fail to see. Is this the way 
God bred angels in the first place ? Is it a necessity 
of spirit that it be posited iiTa mud cell as a germ? 
u Great Conscience /" Why spirits — good, pure, angel 
babies — should be compelled to be propagated in an 
idiotic beast, I would like to know. What relation 



SOME INCONSISTENCIES. I 57 

has a pure spirit to a clog, a cage ; and if needed to 
begin with, how does our author know they will not 
forever need one ? How does he know that he may 
finally take Gabriel's place ? Oh, what folly! O, how 
I faint for a cooling draught from the fountain of truth ! 
" Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth 
not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that 
when we shall appear, we shall be like him." — I 
John, 3:2. 

No! no! It is all wrong! The glory of this mate- 
rial universe is not understood. I turn my back to 
none in faith in the spiritual kingdom of God, but I 
believe that the material kingdom of God is for a pur- 
pose. And while it may sink below the glory of the 
spiritual, yet it rises into the infinities above the human 
mind to conceive. And I believe the Divine Man, the 
Emanuel by whose word all things material were 
made when he shall have brought forth his accomp- 
lished work and put the last finishing touch upon 
the material cosmos from every blazing comet down 
to the lily of the valley, which he has clothed in 
more glory than Solomon, there will rise a shout of 
glory not much less than the song of the pure 
spirits of the spiritual kingdom. Others may de- 
grade our bodily nature, but never while Christ 
reigns on the throne of the universe in his bodily 
presence will I consent to ignore the resurrected, 
glorified humanity. While he reigns as the slain 
lamb w r ho was dead but lives again, and has been 
exalted far above all principalities or powers, "Who 
is the beginning, the first-born from the dead, that in 



158 bishop Foster's heresy. 

all things He might have the pre-eminence." And 
while not only the redeemed in heaven give Him 
glory equal to the Father, but " ten thousand times 
ten thousand and thousands of thousands of angels" 
gather round His throne, and from Gabriel down 
through principalities and powers bow in humble 
obeisance, and lav their crowns at His feet while 
they sing "with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb 
that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wis- 
dom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and bless- 
ing." " And every creature which is in heaven, and on 
the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the 
sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing 
and honor, and glory and power, be unto Him that 
sitteth upon the throne and unto the Lamb forever 
and forever." 

Never, never will I consent to believe the human 
body is beastly, idiotic and dumb. No, it is only 
by sin that the body, soul and spirit have been de- 
graded; which degradation is seen in every part of 
the human nature, and short-sighted indeed must that 
one be who cannot read the story of the fall in every 
lineament of his nature, more forcibly seen, perhaps, 
in the physical, but alas! wonderfully evident in the 
mind, and even in the very spirit, whence cometh 
anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, fornication, unclean- 
ness, murders, deceit, backbitings, hate of God, pride, 
disobedience to parents, but from the "vain imagi- 
nations and the foolish heart." — Rom. 1:21. Who 
would trace those red blotches, the crimson nose, the 
blear eye, to the body alone? Who doesn't know that 



SOME INCONSISTENCIES. I 59 

when the devil is cast out, and the poor unfortunate 
sits at the Master's feet, that the poor body also rises 
from its degradation ? Will any say that the whole 
manhood of a Bunyan is not converted when from the 
low, beastly body, soul and spirit, he rises by the di- 
vine life implanted within to the sublime heights of a 
redeemed human being? And will our Christianity 
leave the body down? Yea, can it be left down while 
the soul and spirit rise? No, it cannot. See the 
seraphic Enoch after 300 years' walking with God; 
how sweet, how heavenly; see he rises, rises, soul, 
body and spirit; how little the touch of the heav- 
enly glory transfigures him into the prophesies of 
Him who is to be the first fruits from the dead. Look 
at saintly John ; see a saintly Fletcher ; see the saints 
coming forth from their long sleep when Jesus rises ; 
see the ineffable change increases from glory unto 
glory by the divine power whereby he is able to sub- 
due all things unto himself; see, they become like His 
own glorious body. 

Material nature ignoble! Look out upon nature as 
it pours its flood of light and glory from over the sea ; 
see it glow in the sunset, and color in the rainbow, or 
sparkle in the eye and on the human cheek divine. 
Tune thy yEolian harp to the harmonies of the spheres. 
Wing thy flight on wings of electric fire, as rapid as 
thought. Who will define the emotions that thrill in 
the roving herd of the forest, the songsters of the 
groves, or the fishes of the sea ? Who will measure 
the thrill of joy in the human nerve, even in a fallen 
nature? Come with me into the paradise of human 



160 bishop Foster's heresy. 

loves ; sit by the rolling sea or by the babbling brook 
in nature's shady bowers; tell me the rapture that 
springs in Jacob's breast as he tends Laban's flocks, 
or sits on the moss-covered well and talks with his be- 
loved Rachel, for the love he bears fourteen long, 
tedious years seems but a honeymoon. Tell me, ye 
despisers of material nature, the ennobling power of 
her emotions as Mozart, that being almost divine, as 
he sits by the side of his Rachel, and pours his 
great opera into her loving ear, until he is so thrilled 
and elevated that "Idomeneo" goes forth not only to 
conquer the family's willing consent to their union, 
but to conquer the world of song, and to give him a 
name above the sons of men. O, tell me not that the 
glory and rapture of this material nature is nothing. 

Come with me into the inner circle of God's chosen 
ones ; sit in the charmed company of the class-room ; 
rise to the glory of the Mount of Transfiguration, and 
as bursting clouds of divine glory come overshadow- 
ing us, and heart speaks to heart, and eye to eye, 
and exclaim with Peter and millions of others down 
the ages, " Lord, it is good for us to be here." 

Tell me that this body, glorified, spiritualized, 
changed after the similitude of Christ's glorious body, 
will be ignoble, beastly, idiotic ? No ! no ! 

And with St. Paul we can say (II Cor. 5:4): "For 
we that are in this tabernacle do groan ; being bur- 
dened. (Yes, many burdens, both of body, soul and 
spirit ; because of sin, not because of our body, &c.) 
Not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon 
that mortality might be swallowed up of life." 



SOME INCONSISTENCIES. l6l 

" Thanks be to God which giveth us the- victory 
through our Lord Jesus Christ." Yes, victory 
over, ist, Sin, the sting of death. 2d, Over death. 
"The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death." 
3d, Over the grave. " O, grave, I will be thy destruc- 
tion." " Death is swallowed up in victory." " O, 
death, where is thy sting? O, grave, where is thy 
victory ?" 

O, beautiful future ! O, beautiful resurrection! O, 
beautiful city that hath foundations " whose builder 
and maker is God!" No trembling star, but the centre 
of the universe. Lighted by the glory of God. Most 
precious ; clear as electricity. O, city of great pro- 
portions, of jasper walls, of gates of pearl! Thy 
foundations garnished with precious stones, of jasper, 
of sapphire, of chalcedony, of emerald, of sardonyx, 
of sardius, of chrysolyte, of beryl, of topaz, of chryso- 
prasus, of jacinth, of amethyst ! Thy streets paved 
with pure gold as clear as glass. O, beautiful city 
that needs no candle or temple, for the Lord God and 
the Lamb are thy temple and thy light! Thy rivers are 
pure water which flow out from beneath the throne of 
God and of the Lamb, whose sloping banks are shaded 
by the trees of life. Thy streets are not only paved 
with gold, but bestudded in the centre and on either 
side with trees that bear all manner of fruits. 

O, lovely city, thy end shall never come ! Earthly 
cities shall rise and fall; suns and earths shall 
crumble and fade, and new spheres shall roll forth in 
everchanging glory, but thy years change not, and 
thou, oh, inhabitant of this beloved city, thy portion 



1 62 bishop Foster's heresy. 

shall be glorious. There shall be no curse. There 
shall be no night of sorrow. Tears are all wiped 
away. Nothing shall enter to defile or corrupt, and 
only those can enter who have their names written in 
the Lamb's book of life. 

Who is this that sits high upon Thy everlasting 
throne? And being turned, I saw Thy golden throne 
encircled in light as of the seven electric motors of 
the universe. And amidst this light most glorious I saw 
seated on the throne the Lamb of God as He had been 
slain, like unto the Son of Man, clothed in a garment 
of kingly beauty. His head and his hair were white 
as snow, and his eyes were as a great flame of fire, 
and his face shone above the brightness of the sun. 
And he spoke with a voice above the voice of the 
ocean or many thunders, saying : " I am Alpha and 
Omega. I am He that liveth and was dead ; and 
behold I am alive forevermore." 

Jerusalem, my happy home, 

Name ever dear to me ; 
When shall my labors have an end 

In joy and peace in thee? 

When shall these eyes thy heaven-built walls 

And pearly gates behold ; 
Thy bulwarks with salvation strong, 

And streets of shining gold ? 



O, when, thou city of my God, 

Shall I thy courts ascend, 
Where congregations ne'er break up 

And Sabbaths have no end ? 



SOME INCONSISTENCIES. 1 63 

Jesus, why cannot I follow thee now? "Thou shalt 
follow me afterwards." " I go to prepare a place for 
you." u To him that overcometh will I grant to sit 
with me in my throne." " Father, I will that my dis- 
ciples be with me where I am, that they may behold 
my glory." 

Who are these before the throne robed in white 
garments ? These are they who have come up out of 
great tribulation and washed their robes in the blood 
of the Lamb, hence are they before the throne serv- 
ing and praising him in his temple. They hunger no 
more and thirst no more, not because they are spirits 
or angels, but because the. Lamb feeds them and leads 
them to the living fountains of water. Ah ! we, too, 
soon shall be there, not to take the place of angels, 
even the archangel Gabriel, but as the redeemed sons 
of God by the blood of the Lamb. " The first fruits 
of his resurrection are there, and they follow him 
withersoever he goeth. These were redeemed from 
among men, being the first fruits unto God and to the 
Lamb. And they sang a new song never heard before 
in heaven, Glory be to God and unto the Lamb." 
Thus " He being in the form of God thought it not 
robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of 
no reputation and became obedient unto death, where- 
for God hath highly exalted Him and given Him a 
name above every name." 

"The head that once was crowned with thorns 
Is crowned with glory now ; 
A royal diadem adorns 
The mighty victor's brow. 



164 bishop Foster's heresy. 

1 ' Angels assist our mighty joys, 

Strike all your harps of gold ; 
And when you strike your highest notes, 

His love can ne'er be told." 

Glory to God, I shall be like him; not like Gabriel, 
but like my divine Lord. " We know that when he 
shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him 
as he is." — St. John. 

" We look for the Lord Jesus Christ who shall 
change our vile bodies that it may be fashioned like 
unto His glorious body." — St. Paul. 

"We shall be changed in a moment, in the twink- 
ling of an eye at the last trump." " This mortal must 
put on immortality." — St. Paul. 

"I am the resurrection and the life." "I have the 
keys of death and the grave." — Jesus. 

" The rising God forsakes the tomb, 
In vain the tomb forbids him rise; 
Cherubic legions guard him home, 
And shout him welcome to the skies." 

O, glorious city, glorious inheritance, incorruptible, 
and fadeth not away. O, glorious throne ; O, mighty 
King of kings and Lord of lords ! 

O, blessed humanity, " glorified with Christ!" O, 
Jesus of Gethsemane, of Pilate's hall! O, Christ of 
Golgotha's trembling summit! O, voluntary sorrow 
and woe! Jesus of the new-made grave! Thou hast 
conquered. From Olivet's brow I see Thee rise. 
Thou art the glorified one. I shall die with Thee ; I 
shall rise with Thee ; I shall reign with Thee. " Glori- 



SOME INCONSISTENCIES. 1 65 

fied with Christ!" O, suffering ones! shall we not 
suffer on, knowing that 

"They that suffer with their Master here 
Shall soon before his sight appear, 

And by his side sit down. 
To patience, faith, the prize is sure, 
And all that to the end endure 

The cross shall wear the crown. 
Thrice blessed bliss, inspiring hope, 
It lifts the fainting spirit up, 

And brings to life the dead." 

O, rapture infinite! O, bliss divine! like Thee, oh 
Thou living, resurrected Jesus, shall I shine like the 
stars forever and ever, changing from glory into glory ; 
beautiful to-day, more beautiful to-morrow ; happy 
to-day, more happy to-morrow. Abel, Enoch, Sam- 
uel, David, Elijah, John, Paul, Luther, Wesley, 
mother, father, Eva, Sally, Edith, art thou there ? 
My mother, my father, my children there in thy 
spirits, robed in thy resurrected bodies? Yes, I 
see thee all there; the same bodies, only glori- 
fied ; yes, that is the same voice ; I hear it now, 
oh, so sweet ! How fair thy brow ; how bright 
thine eyes ; how fragrant thy lips. No more tears ; 
no more pain; no more death; no night; no old 
age ; no aching heart and throbbing brow. O, thou 
wert lovely on earth, in thy weakness and pain ; how 
our hearts broke when you left us ; but oh, how 
lovely now ! What crowns ; what palmy sceptres ; 
what smiles wreath thy face ; what songs float over 
the hills away, and echo in my soul. Sing on ; shout 



1 66 bishop Foster's heresy. 

on ; rise nearer and nearer thy Saviour; I'll meet thee 
soon; I am drawing nearer; I'll soon meet thee in 
our family mansion. O, sufferers with Jesus, weep 
not with those who have no hope. " They that suffer 
with him shall be glorified together." " They that 
sleep in Jesus will God bring with him." 

It is revealed that they are not angels or pure 
spirits, but like their divine Master, men and women 
redeemed from sin, death, hell and the grave. And 
we do not go down to the grave, as our author would 
have us, " dreading to go, our faith struggling with 
terrors of death, our frames shivering as our feet en- 
ter the cold river, out into the pitiless tempest." No, 
no ! I am ready to be offered ; a crown awaits me, 
shouted St. Paul. I see the heavens opened, said the 
irartyr Stephen, and his face shone as an angel's. 
" The best of all God is with us." " O for a gust of 
praise to go to the end of the earth." " I am happy 
as I can be on earth, and as sure of glory as if I were 
already in it." " I know I am dying, but my deathbed 
is a bed of roses. I die a safe, easy, happy death. 
Precious Jesus ! Glory, glory be to God!" u There is 
now nothing but peace, sweetest peace." 

" How hard it is to die !" remarked a friend to an 
expiring believer. " Oh, no ! no !" he replied. " Easy 
dying! Glorious dying !" Looking up to the clock, 
he said : " I have experienced more happiness in dying 
two hours this day than in my whole life. It is worth 
a whole life to have such an end as this. Oh ! I never 
thought that such a poor worm as I could come to 
such a glorious death." 



SOME INCONSISTENCIES. 1 67 

This is the way Christians die. This is the victory 
that is vouchsafed unto the believers in old-fashioned 
Methodism who believe in Jesus as their life and 
resurrection. And if our author has nothing better 
than doubts and fears, shivering out in the pitiless 
storm, we don't care to accept his teaching. 

' 'O, death, where is thy sting ; 
O, grave, where is thy victory." 

FOURTH INCONSISTENCY. 

It seems inconsistent to me for an author of so 
much ability, and upon so important a subject, to fail 
to note the difference between the body, per se the 
soma, and the present human form thereof, viz : 
flesh and blood ; especially since he so often uses 
them as if they were one and the same ; and also 
since the Bible makes the distinction plain enough 
for all intents and purposes; e. g., I Cor. 15:50: 
" Flesh (sarx) and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom 
of God." I Cor. 15:35: "And with what body 
(soma) do they come ?" Eph. 5:23: " And he is the 
saviour of the body " {soma). And nowhere is it said 
the body cannot inherit the kingdom, or is unholy. 

Our author fails to differentiate between the soma, 
the body, the physical nature as constituting the 
living, breathing, thinking, personality, and the ele- 
ments that this personality uses in the present form. 
Hence he says (page 182): "I wish to put on record 
here that, for myself, there is nothing in any particle 
of flesh or blood that ever belonged to my body that 



1 68 bishop Foster's heresy. 

creates in me the least desire to ever see it again." 
If he had stopped here he would have been consistent. 
Who ever had a desire to gather up the blood_ that 
ran from the nose in childhood, or to carry to heaven 
the curls cut off when mother wept ? No one ever 
wrote such a desire, or would gather up the old effete 
matter thrown off particle by particle. But now he 
leaves the subject of flesh (sarx) and speaks of the 
body (soma) : " This body of earthly matter I am 
perfectly willing to put off, that I may put on one that 
will answer the higher ends of my existence better. 
' That body which I look for, the resurrection body.' ' 
Now, while St. Paul says : " Flesh and blood cannot 
inherit the kindgom of God," he also says : " God 
giveth to every seed his own body." 

Now, if our author had seen the difference between 
the flesh and blood, components of the body which 
were temporary, changing, corruptible, while the body 
is a personality, a someone, and not simply a some- 
what, unchanging and. naturally undying, he would 
not have fallen into this error. 

Again (page 52): "My body had changed and many 
times vanished away, but I abided. The years had 
driven me from house to house time and again, but 
they had not impaired me. That which abides is a 
spirit. Bodies change and die, only spirit remains." 

This is beautiful rhetoric but false reasoning. 
While every beating pulse makes a change in the con- 
stituent elements of the body, the constituentor re- 
mains the same, and that constituentor is not a spirit, 
but a man of body, soul and spirit, and the body is 



SOME INCONSISTENCIES. 1 69 

the same even as the soul and spirit are the same all 
along from the cradle to the grave. I have no more lost 
my body than I have lost my soul or spirit. The fact 
that it has changed argues no more for another body 
than that I have another soul or spirit because my 
soul and spirit have changed from the boyhood 
thoughts, emotions and conscience through the vari- 
ous stages until now. "Man became a living being," 
not a dying being, and if he had not sinned he would 
not have died. True the flesh and blood, the consti- 
tuted elements of his body, would have changed, thus 
giving the living being chance to expand and grow 
through all the stages of his earthly life, until his 
earthly development had finished and he was ready 
for his mansion amid the unsullied glories of his 
heavenly home; and instead of death, like Enoch and 
Elijah he would have soared in his glorified nature to 
brighter realms beyond the sky. And I believe that 
some day death itself shall be destroyed ; and as the 
worm rises a butterfly, so man shall rise without death 
to his heavenly environments, to the blood-washed 
throng in the house not made with hands above. If 
our author had rightly looked in the mirror of his 
own conscious self he would have said, What a 
change! My body has wonderfully changed; I can 
hardly believe that I am the same ; but these are the 
same eyes that my father looked into, these the 
same lips my mother kissed, these the same hands 
that held the plow. Changed ? Yes, but not more 
than they saw taking place since first I cooed on my 
mother's breast till I left the old homestead. There is 



I70 BISHOP FOSTERS HERESY. 

the same scar that I received from a fall when but 
three years old. 

My mind or soul, my thinker, can it be the same? 
Can this be the same mind that my mother taught the 
a, b, c ? Is this the same mind after fifty years of 
thought and study and travel and experience? Yes, 
but oh, how changed. Yes, but it is the same, and 
side by side hangs the picture of my sainted mother, 
and the picture of my last boy that I laid away in the 
tomb. 

My spirit is the same, but not the less changed, 
Alas ! is there a change here also ; is there no spot but 
is changed since I last heard the cooing dove ? Our 
author says: " Bodies change, only spirit remains." 
Alas! my brother, the spirit changes too; look deeper, 
brother. Has there no change come over thy spirit 
since then; has there come no sanctifying influences ol 
the Holy Ghost; has not thy pride and worldly ambi- 
tion been ennobled ; has not thy fifty years of care 
and sorrow, thy toil and suffering, thy sacrifices and 
service, thy fellowship with other spirits wrought no 
change? Is it true that only thy hair is whitened and 
thy form lost some of its elasticity ? Ah ! thou hast 
changed, but thou art the same — the*same body, soul 
and spirit. 

So, also, my dear Bishop Foster, there awaits you 
another change. " This mortal shall put on immor- 
tality." "This corruptible shall put on incorruption." 
" Not that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, 
that mortality might be swallowed up of life." And 
not only the body will thus be changed, but your 



SOME INCONSISTENCIES. f/t 

mind also, for when you see your body that has 
served you so long and well these seventy years not 
left at the gate, but clothed upon with immortality, 
glowing and sparkling in immortal youth, all weak- 
ness gone, all shame gone, all corruption gone for- 
ever, and the dear old body that we all love, changed 
and fashioned like unto His glorious body, and when 
mother and father, and wife and children recognize 
the same boy, and husband and father come home, 
not to the old farm and homestead, but to the 
heavenly mansion that eternally shall stand, then I am 
sure your mind will be so changed that you will have 
as much difficulty to recognize it as you will your 
body. And with the Apostle " I pray God your whole 
spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless until 
the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." 

FIFTH INCONSISTENCY. 

One of the greatest inconsistencies of our author is 
the inconsiderateness with which he assails the funda- 
mental doctrines of the Christian Church. If the 
doctrines of our church need the services of a phy- 
sician, they should receive the stroke of an expert in 
the lines of its necessities, and that after a thorough 
and judicious consultation of the ablest doctors of 
the church. When a patient is diseased in some of 
the vital organs, the quack may cut in the dark re- 
gardless of the consequences ; but the true and skilled 
physician, after long and painful thought and consul- 
tation. Hence I say that for so ripe a thinker our 



172 BISHOP FOSTERS HERESY. 

author is inconsistently inconsiderate in plunging his 
reckless knife into the very vitals of the church. 
Hear him, for example, on page 16 : 

"However it may awaken surprise, truth demands 
that we should make the confession that we do not 
know that death does not end all." " If there are any 
who imagine that they know, we are not anxious to 
dispossess them of the pleasing delusion — it cannot 
harm them." Can a stab like that be thrust into the 
very vitals of conscious assurance with anything but 
a disastrous effect ? Palliate the wound after the 
bloody blade is withdrawn all you please, anoint it 
with salve and bind it carefully as you may, the stab 
is but the thrust of a quack. 

Page 19 : " Continued difference and disputation 
should not discourage us. In the nature of the case 
this is inevitable. Each mind must act for itself, and 
as new minds are constantly coming into the arena, 
the old questions must be fought over in each age, 
. . . and so each mind must renew the combat. 
There is no other way. Let the glorious fight go on ! 
The sturdier the blows the better for truth." Is it 
consistent for a great man to write thus? Can any one 
fail to see the fallacy that covers the half truth? True, 
each mind must fight out his own battles ; no one 
thoughtful mind will allow any other mind to think 
wholly for him ; but is it true therefore, we are to have 
no standard of truth to which each mind can come to 
compare ? Shall each man set his watch by his own 
eye when he supposes the sun is in the meridian ? 
" Let the glorious fight go on ! The sturdier the 



SOME INCONSISTENCIES. 1 73 

blows the better for truth;" true, but shall it be a 
mob fight in which no system shall be observed ? 
Shall Bishop Colenso strike at the atonement, Bishop 
Foster at the resurrection, Dr. Thomas at future pun- 
ishment, each grasping their own flag rush pell mell 
into the fray? 

No. Let everything be done in order. We fight not 
a mob, but an organized army of principalities and 
powers, and we must be as thoroughly an organized 
army as the foe. Christ is our great captain, "and he 
gave some, apostles ; and some, prophets ; and some, 
evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the 
perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, 
for the edifying of the church." — Eph. 4:11, 12. 

We are not a mob, every one striking out for him- 
self. No, there is another way ; that is the way laid 
down by the Apostle for "the perfecting of the saints." 
The church should be a thoroughly organized army, 
and one of its first duties is to see to the discipline of 
the army. Who doesn't know the importance of dis- 
cipline ? Mr. Wesley said : " The Methodists must 
take heed to their discipline." True, each mind must 
strike for himself, but he must strike the proper thing; 
he must not strike his friend; he must not spike his 
own guns, or blow up his own magazine ; he must 
strike, but it must be his enemy. Hence the Bishop's 
vow contains among other things, I will carefully 
guard the church from heresies and all strange doc- 
trines. And when a Bishop fails to keep his ordina- 
tion vows, but instead blows up the magazine, is he 
not a traitor to his church? Will any sentimentalism 



174 BISHOP FOSTERS HERESY. 

about each man striking for himself excuse such 
Arnoldism ? 

If our author, in investigating truth for himself, finds 
out that the standards of his church are untenable ; 
if he finds out after careful, prayerful, and thorough 
study, that Mr. Wesley, Watson, Dr. Clark, and the 
great standard writers of the church are in the wrong, 
and he cannot agree with them, but finds himself in 
disagreement, what is his plain duty ? Is it to go to 
work to overthrow those standards by preaching 
before large bodies of ministers and laymen ; by throw- 
ing the weight and force of his position in writing a 
book and stamping it with the seal of our great pub- 
lishing house ? No ; every impulse of our manhood 
is insulted. Every principle of right is ignored. Ele- 
vated to rank and power, clothed with authority, and 
when with sceptre full in hand, instead of driving 
away strange, heretical enemies, he willfully stabs the 
church from his high and powerful position; and 
standing in that high and sheltered place, bids defiance 
to his critics. Even claiming that " there is unbecom- 
ing impatience and even intolerance of discussion," 
what show have I, without money, or influence, or 
patronage, to attack such an armored giant, sheltered 
behind a thousand rifled cannon, high upon his im- 
pregnable throne of a deathless episcopacy? But, 
David conquered Goliath; Luther defeated the Pope; 
so, by God's help, this giant' shall not go free. See 
page 23 : " We consign the quickly decaying form 
to the grave. We know that it soon moulders to 
dust. There is not a single sign that it will ever re- 



SOME INCONSISTENCIES. 175 

turn to life. To believe that it will, on any facts which 
appear on any rational ground within our reach, is 
impossible." Again (161): u The affection the soul 
has for the body, and the consequent disappointment 
it would feel at having it displaced by another, is a 
fond imagination — delusion. Let us cease to be the 
sport of dreams and slave of prejudices." I say that 
these inconsiderate assertions which strike at the verv 
vitals of our doctrines, with which the book abounds, 
are inconsistent. Doctrine, discipline, well-defined 
standard of truths by which the Christian Church is 
held into a great combination against a combined, 
united foe, is of the first importance. There can be 
no successful fight against error, maintained only as 
lovers of truth combine on common bases of general 
truth, and clasping hands present a united front to 
the enemy; and thus like the united sands of the sea- 
shore, from their united bases beat every roaring wave 
into foam. Without this united, solid basis of union, 
all truths would be whirled about as the sands in the 
tides of the sea. If any finds himself unable to thus 
clasp hands in this holy union, it were more manly 
for him to plunge alone into the surging breakers 
than to try to hold his position and to destroy the 
foundation on which others rest. And if he lacks 
that manly courage to take a cold bath, it is infinitely 
better that the church see that his place is filled by 
one who holds these common truths in beautiful 
symmetry with the rest. And as but one song is heard 
from shore to shore, so we shall continue to hear, "I 



176 bishop Foster's heresy. 

believe in God the Father Almighty, and in Jesus 
Christ his only Son, our Lord," &c. 

Last year I was in the midst of an earnest fight in 
Camden, N. J., with the Unitarian preacher. After 
months of conflict in which it appeared to me I had 
the clear advantage, although both of the daily papers 
were in full sympathy with the Unitarian, judge my 
surprise one Monday morning to read nearly a col- 
umn in the Post, headed "A Pastor's Experience; his 
own opinions and those of Rev. Dr. Curry." At 
Unity church, Sunday night, Rev. William M. Gilbert, 
the pastor of the Unitarian church in Vineland, but 
formerly of the Methodist Episcopal ministery, gave 
his " One Year's Experience Outside the Orthodox 
Fold." Mr. Gilbert made this statement about the 
late Rev. Dr. Daniel Curry, at one time the editor of 
the New York " Christian Advocate" (a Methodist 
Episcopal organ): In January of 1884, Dr. Curry was 
present at a Methodist preachers' meeting in Chicago, 
and made some remarks on the " Higher Criticism of 
the Bible." One of the preachers present made a 
stenographic report of the utterances of the doctor 
and afterwards wrote them out in full, and is willing to 
take oath as to their accuracy as given in the Boston 
" Christian Register" of February 14, 1884, from 
which I quote: Then followed a quarter column of 
flings at the Old Testament like the following — " But, 
we are now standing on the v eve of the most stupend- 
ous revolution in reference to the doctrines of the 
Bible that the church has ever known. Uncertainly 



SOME INCONSISTENCIES. 1 77 

and doubt are pressing upon us." " The Old Testa- 
ment abounds with ten thousand old wives' fables, 
which will finally drop out as a tadpole loses its tail." 
"When you have to give up what your mother taught 
you, do it honestly." "I am awfully shy of the Old 
Testament." " These words of Dr. Curry," said Mr. 
Gilbert, "were uttered soon after he had finished re- 
vising Clark's commentaries, and hence he was un- 
usually familiar with Biblical literature." 

What was I to do ? Not another pastor of the other 
twenty-five evangelical churches uttered a word. 
Here was hurled into my face a statement from the 
venerable editor and scholar whose pen had just fallen 
from his palsied hand. 

True, the " Christian Advocate " had a dozen lines 
in an editorial, saying that Dr. Curry had denied the 
accuracy of the report, &c, from which I made the 
best reply I could, and sent to the people of Camden, 
through the press. Then follows another half column 
from Mr. Gilbert, in which he says, among other 
things : "There is no attempt to tell what Dr. Curry 
did say," &c. I only relate this bit of actual history 
to enforce this point. " Our author is inconsistent in 
his inconsiderate assaults of fundamental truth." I am 
sure he has said enough in "Beyond the Grave" to 
make polished arrows for a thousand quivers for 
skeptics of various kinds. I know Dr. Curry was a firm 
believer in our holy Christianity, and probably did not 
say all that was charged to him. But do we not know 
"that prudence is the better part of valor?" Are we 
not to avoid the very appearance of evil? Do we 



iy8 bishop Foster's heresy. 

not know that the flying pieces from a bursting shell 
may kill more than the solid ball ? Do we not know 
that simple negations and random slings may be 
turned into shafts of deadly agencies? If, when we 
stand for the faith once delivered to the saints, we are 
to have polished shafts hurled at us from the heads of 
our own church, what can we do ? I for one feel that 
this kind of destructive criticism has gone far enough 
in our own church, and if we must not only meet the 
German, the French, and other outside rationalism, 
but from our own church leaders have these things 
hurled at us, we may well despair. If the fundamental 
doctrines need revising, let us do it in a systematic 
way. Let a convention of evangelical Christians be 
called, and, as in the past, doctrines have been formu- 
lated, so let us now be equal to the emergency ; but 
until then it is to be supposed the church teaches the 
truth, and the only manly way is to teach in accord 
with the acknowledged standards of the church or to 
withdraw from her positions of influence and power. 
But to stand behind her pulpits and to live upon 
her bounty, and therein receive almost the only 
power to harm her, and under cover of that posi- 
tion try to overthrow the very foundations on which 
she is built, is all wrong. That there is any consid- 
erable demand for any fundamental change, I doubt; 
on the other hand I believe the mass of the peo- 
ple are satisfied, and except in some further devel- 
opment and illustration of the old doctrines, they look 
as young and beautiful in the light of the nineteenth 
as of the first century. 



SOME INCONSISTENCIES. 1 79 

SIXTH INCONSISTENCY. 

Our author's sixth inconsistency consists in his un- 
reasonable exaltation of reason. If I am correct in 
my judgment of Bishop Foster, this inconsistency 
marks his life fallacy; i. e. y he is, in a modified sense, a 
rationalist. He elevates reason above its legitimate 
sphere, which must of necessity lead into constant 
difficulty. The rationalist demands more from rea- 
son than it can possibly give. The Romanist denies 
to reason its proper function, hence they must both 
inevitably be defective or erroneous. He that refuses 
to put every proposition through the most rigid pro- 
cess of reason, is liable at every step to be deceived. 
Is it reasonable? is a proper question of a rational 
being, and even then we must recognize the fact ot 
our liability to error, for the best human judgment is 
fallible. The Romanist follows blindly the leadership 
of authority, ignoring reason. The rationalist follows 
the leadership of reason, ignoring authority and ex- 
perience. Is it not evident that these are both wrong, 
and that either course is liable to great evil ? 

Our author evidently has followed reason so ser- 
vilely that he has made a life failure in the realm ot 
Christian thought; and nowhere is this fact shown bet- 
ter than in " Beyond the Grave." He says, on page 
13, chapter I, at the very beginning: "The subject I 
am to treat is ' Life Beyond the Grave.' There are 
three possible methods of conducting the discussion. 
These are : 



180 bishop Foster's heresy. 

" First. To assume everything, and give wing to 
imagination and feeling {what a discussion). 

" Second. To treat it exegetically, as purely a doc- 
trine of revelation (and why is it not purely a doctrine 
of revelation?) 

u Third. To submit it to the reason, and examine it 
in the light of all the facts bearing upon it which lie 
within the circle of our intelligence." 

Now, if he means anything by announcing these 
three methods, he certainly means to submit " life be- 
yond the grave" to the reason, for he says below: 
" Aiming at the best and most permanent results, we 
adopt the third method." He is not to conduct the 
discussion by the first or second methods, but by the 
third. Hence, can we expect anything but confusion? 
" Life beyond the grave," not by imagination and 
feeling, not exegetically, as purely a doctrine of reve- 
lation, but submit it to the reason. Now let me ask, 
what has reason to do with " life beyonnd the grave?" 
The imagination, the feelings, the Bible says there is 
44 life beyond the grave;" but what has reason to say? 
What is the province of reason on such a question ? 
Now, I submit that the only province of reason is to 
say it is reasonable or unreasonble that there is " life 
beyond the grave." " Reason, ratio, from reri, ratus, 
to reckon, believe, think." The reason does not know 
whether there is "life beyond the grave" or not, 
hence it cannot tell, and to ask it is similar to asking 
a blind man the color of a rose. Ask reason if it is 
probable, possible, reasonable, and it can and will an- 



SOME INCONSISTENCIES. l8l 

swer you ; but why ask it to tell you what it does not 
know. Hence, our author soon comes to the only le- 
gitimate answer that reason can possibly give, viz. 
(page 17): "We do not know that death does not end 
all." Here our author candidly admits his position. 
" We do not know," i. e. } we submit the question of 
" life beyond the grave " not to imagination or feeling, 
nor to revelation, but to reason; hence reason replies, 
I don't know; therefore our author can only say, "We 
do not know." 

Here is the fallacy of the rationalist. A rationalist 
is one who is unreasonable in demanding of reason 
what it cannot give. The reasoning faculty in man 
is one of his noblest attributes, but it is not his 
only attribute. It is liable to all the weaknesses of 
the human mind, and its testimony is always to be re- 
ceived with great caution. For thousands of years 
the wise men said the sun, moon and stars all revolved 
around the earth. Reason looked up, and smiled, and 
gave assent. What has reason to do with " life be- 
yond the grave?" Simply to act upon the reasona- 
bleness of the proposition. The proposition is sub- 
mitted to the reason. Death does not end all. My 
imagination, my feelings, my innate consciousness, 
and my Bible say death is not my final overthrow. 
The office of reason is to weigh the evidence for and 
against the proposition, and in the light of all the 
facts give an answer as to its reasonable possibility or 
probability. To demand more of reason than this is 
rationalism. To accept less is credulity. These are 
the two dangerous extremes that have afflicted the 



1 82 bishop Foster's heresy. 

race, and which is the more dangerous is hard to tell. 
If our author had said, "life beyond the grave " is a 
question above the powers of the finite mind to com- 
prehend; therefore I propose to examine the sub- 
ject carefully, subjecting the imagination, the feelings, 
the innate consciousness and the claims of the Bible 
as a revelation upon that subject to the rigid test of 
reason, and to examine every fact or argument submit- 
ted thereto, to see if the proposition is reasonable, 
then he would have asked of reason a proper ques- 
tion. But in asking reason the direct question, rea- 
son, if true to its nature, could but reply, I don't 
know. Let our author add {the evidence of) after 
submit, and the proposition will be proper thus : 

Third. "To submit (the evidence of) it to the reason 
and examine it in the light of all the facts bearing 
upon it which lie within the circle of our intelli- 
gence," and then he submits to reason its legitimate 
business. 

Let us ask reason about " life in the moon," and 
can it answer other than, I do not know ? Let us ask 
reason of the evidence of " life in the moon," and it 
will examine the arguments for and against, and an- 
swer, It is reasonable or unreasonable. So let us ask 
reason to examine the evidence of " life beyond the 
grave," and it will answer with a voice as loud as ten 
thousand thunders, " There is abundant evidence, 
while there are some things that would seem to prove 
that death ends all." Yet the arguments are ten to 
one that there is life beyond the grave. This is the 
mission of reason ; here it ends on the question of 



SOME INCONSISTENCIES. I 83 

" life beyond the grave," and he that goes no further 
can know no more. But we are not shut up to rea- 
son alone ; thank God, He has not left us with only 
this faculty. The ear is a great and blessed faculty, 
but it cannot see the light, the beautiful world, or the 
stars, but the eye can. Still, the eye cannot taste and 
tell me the difference between the sweet or the sour 
apple, but the taste can ; but the ear, the eye, the taste 
cannot tell the difference between the most fragrant 
garden, and the most noisom stench, but the nose 
can. The rationalist is one who goes around with 
closed eyes, complaining that there is no light or 
beauty; or plugged ears and finding no harmony ; 
and chewing roses and finding no fragrance. Good 
Lord, deliver us from such inconsistency. 

It is nothing against reason that it cannot answer 
the question, " Does death end all ?" any more than 
it is against it that it cannot answer whether an apple 
is sweet or sour. I say to reason, Is that a sour 
apple? It can but answer, I don't know. I ask, Is it 
reasonable* that it is sour? and it may answer, yes, . 
or no ; but it cannot tell. Is that stick straight that 
looks crooked because it is thrust in the water? Do 
men walk across the rivers, bays, and sounds in the 
north ? Is the earth flat, or round ? Does the sun 
rise, wheel around the earth, and come back at sun- 
rise ? The reason can only answer as to the reason- 
ableness, or unreasonableness, and wait for experiment. 
So, also, we must submit the evidence of the " life 
beyond the grave" as to its reasonableness to reason, 
and experimentally test the question as we do in all 



1 84 bishop Foster's heresy. 

questions submitted to the reason. I can soon tell 
whether the apple is sour. I can soon know whether 
men walk on the water in the north. I can soon tell 
whether the earth is round. So, also, I can know that 
" Death does not end all;" there is " life beyond the 
grave." How ? Not by reason ; but, 

First. By my innate consciousness. 

Second. By the teaching of Jesus Christ. Not to 
enter into the discussion of axiomatic, moral or first 
truths, I am safe in saying that this belief in a future 
" life beyond the grave " is so universal, all-pervasive 
of human thinking, that on the one denying this as true 
must fall the burden of proof. It may prove but the 
absolute need of a life beyond, while the second 
demonstrates beyond the possibility of doubt the fact 
that there is " life beyond the grave." I am free to 
admit that on the second proof must depend our 
assurance of the " life beyond the grave." While all 
men have felt the power and influence of the first, 
yet only the believer in Jesus Christ has entered fully 
into that immortality which was brought to light by 
the gospel of Christ. 

The first may be compared to the physical hunger ; 
the second to the spread table where the hunger is 
satisfied; hence salvation may be compared to a feast. 

See that hungry man! What longing, what pain, 
what desire for food! See' he is at the table; how 
he eats, hardly .looking up or speaking ! He eats, not 
reasons! Thus the human heart is hungry. The 
human innate consciousness has hungered for soul 
food, and one of the essential longings was for life be 



SOME INCONSISTENCIES. 1 85 

yond the grave. And one of the essential foods pro- 
vided in the Lord's feast was immortality and eternal 
life. "I am the resurrection and the life." To this 
feast millions and millions of hungry souls have come, 
and, thank God, they have been filled with the bread 
of life. " I am the bread of life, he that eateth of me 
shall never hunger." 

Here is the difficultv of our author's method, as 
with the rationalist. The gap between hunger and the 
supply can only be passed over by experiment. The 
hungry man may reason about hunger, its causes and 
cures, or about the reasonableness or unreasonableness 
of eating ; he may ask many questions, raise many 
objections, show the whole process to be mysterious, 
but his hunger cannot be properly satisfied until he 
partakes of the food. Eating will satisfy his hunger. 

Reason has to do with the reasonableness of the 
process. Faith in the food as being proper as to its 
nutritiousness, adaptability, comes in after reason has 
done its work ; but the actual eating does the work. 

So also with soul hunger; the human soul has an 
innate hunger after God, after peace, after life. " O, 
that I might know him." "How shall a man be just 
with his Maker?" "If a man die shall he live again?" 
This has been and is the universal cry of the human 
soul. Many tables have been spread. I do not say 
that Christianity is the only one that has food for this 
hunger, but I do say that u Jesus Christ is the bread of 
life!' Jesus said (John 6:33): "The bread of God is 
He which cometh down from heaven and giveth life 
unto the world." " I am the bread of life." " I am the 



1 86 bishop Foster's heresy. 

living bread which came down from heaven ; if any 
man eat of this bread he shall live forever." 

Behold then, and wonder. Soul hunger as broad as 
physical hunger; soul food as abundant as soul hun- 
ger. Can any man look into the open face of human- 
ity and doubt the universal fact of soul hunger? 
Read it in the bloody altars, the lurid flames, the 
sacred rivers, the religious wars, the catacombs, the 
sacrifices of the martyrs, the cross and steeples of the 
Christian Church ; yea, in the universal activity of un- 
believers as well. Let each man look deep into his 
own soul and know this hunger, and ask, Shall God 
clothe the grass and the lily, feed the sparrow and 
supply bodily hunger and neglect the soul? " If ye, 
being evil, know how to supply your children, how 
much more shall your heavenly Father feed your 
soul, oh ye of little faith?" and then come to the wide- 
spread and abundant-laden table and be satisfied. 
" O, taste and see that the Lord is good." 

" Except ye eat of my body and drink of my blood 
ye have no life in you." Eating is the only way to 
supply this great hunger. Our author's attempt to 
make reason the method is the mistake of the ration- 
alist Reason has its office, but can only examine the 
reasons for and against this table ; it may lead to the 
table, but can never test the power of the food to sup- 
ply the soul's demand. Yea, faith must step in and 
mediate between reason and the test; hence without faith 
it is impossible to eat. Reason has tested the author- 
ity and found some good, some indifferent. Yea, it 
has sought to understand how this food can supply 



SOME INCONSISTENCIES. I 87 

the soul, but after all it can only lead up to faith, 
which says, I will try and know. "The proof of the 
pudding is in the eating." Reason or faith cannot 
test it; they are but the instruments by which the 
food is put in contact with the nature ; and the food, 
and the food only, can satisfy the soul's hunger; hence 
the supreme test is in eating the bread of life. 

Here, and here only is " The rock of offence and 
the stone of stumbling." "To the Jews a stumbling- 
block, and to the Greeks foolishness." "Ye will not 
come unto me, that ye might have life," (John 5:40), 
is as true to-day as when spoken by Jesus Christ. 
Our author's submitting this food to the reason is un- 
reasonable, and his assertion (page 15), "That it is 
even better to doubt than to assent, when the proof is 
not sufficient," is misleading. If the bread is musty, 
if you distrust the cook, it is better not to eat than to 
be poisoned, but if reason says there is nothing un- 
reasonable about the food or the authority, then eat 
and be satisfied. So, also, come to this blessed Lord 
Jesus Christ, and in humble faith partake and live. 
But, says the objector, will this prove that there is life 
beyond the grave? Yes and no. It will prove to you 
that Jesus Christ has power to supply the soul's 
hunger for God and peace, and this hunger supplied, 
you will be in position to see the life beyond death. 

Let me illustrate. I live in the tropics, I have never 
seen ice. A neighbor goes north, and returning tells 
me that he saw men walk over the rivers and bays on 
ice (z. e. t on the water); in the north the water becomes 
hard on top and they walk and drive teams over it. 



1 88 bishop Foster's heresy. 

There is no bridge or boats. The water simply be- 
comes hard, you can see through it to the bottom. 
Reason says that is reasonable or unreasonable. 
My neighbor is rather of a doubtful character ; I 
doubt. A hundred neighbors go and return bearing 
the same story, and some of these are men of un- 
doubted reliableness; and while reason remains the 
same, faith says it must be true. Unbelief says it is 
unreasonable ; I won't believe. A thousand men go, 
bearing the same story ; still unbelief says it is con- 
trary to nature; the idea is preposterous. This man 
believes more in himself than in a thousand other 
men. There are a few such men in regard to the 
power of Jesus Christ to save the soul from soul 
hunger. They are what the Scriptures terms " men 
wise in their own conceit." " Heady," " high-minded," 
" Professing themselves to be wise, they become fools." 
" I submit it to the reason," says the proud rationalist 
and our author, and it is unreasonable and I don't 
care for your testimony. I have not touched or 
tasted, heard or seen it ; therefore I won't accept 
it. Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. 
To save them from sin and moral oughtness, soul- 
hunger; to save them from wrath and give them 
peace of conscience. One, two; yea, a thousand, ten 
thousand ; yes, millions, testify that He is the power of 
God unto salvation to every one that believeth ; and yet 
our " wise" rationalistic doubter objects and says, It is 
unreasonable ; I'll not receive this testimony. Now what 
is to be done ? He won't go and see and know for him- 
self, neither will he accept the evidence of millions of the 



SOME INCONSISTENCIES. I 89 

best men in the world, upon whom he sees the power 
in their own lives changing them from low, groveling, 
drunken lives to the noblest. The only thing to do is 
to leave him alone in his glorious shame. But would 
it not be more reasonable for him to say, Although it 
looks unreasonable for men to walk on water and 
over bays and rivers, yet it is more unreasonable for 
me to put my judgment against the evidence of these 
hundreds of good men who have been north and 
testify unanimously to the fact; hence, he says, it 
must be true, but his knowledge is only the knowl- 
edge of faith, which is above reason and is only rea- 
sonable because it is testified to by evidence that 
makes doubt unreasonable ; hence, the unreasonable- 
ness of rationalism when it refuses to accept the 
testimony of millions of intelligent, unbiased, culti- 
vated men that Jesus Christ hath power on earth to 
save. Now, suppose this resident of the tropics 
wishes to know experimentally of this wonder, he 
must go and test for himself, and when he walks 
above the sweeping tide and looks through his glassy 
pavement at its swelling eddies he may feel his head 
swim, but a few steps and all is over. So, thank God, 
he who accepts Christ by faith and comes unto his 
throbbing, loving heart, may stand for the moment 
bewildered, but a few steps and all is over, and the 
soul finds its true centre and cries out, " My Lord and 
my God." "Come unto me all ye that labor and are 
heavy laden, and I will give you rest." " He that 
cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out." " No man 
cometh unto the Father but by me." " I am the way." 



190 bishop Foster's heresy. 

" / am the truth" ■" I am the door." " I am the life." 
" I am the bread and the water of life." The rationalist 
submits Christ to the reason, rejecting the testimony 
of others and stands alone. The orthodox worldling 
accepts the testimony of the ages, but refuses to ex- 
periment for himself and only knows by faith. The 
Christian believer accepts Christ and knows for him- 
self, and then all hell cannot dispossess him of his 
demonstrated knowledge; hence, Paul exclaims, "/ 
know whom I have believed" II Tim. 1:12; i. e. y I be- 
lieve in Christ, I now know him personally. My faith 
knowledge has been verified by experiment. Hence, 
we say, submit the proposition to the crucible of 
reason, and when it has passed judgment submit it to 
faith, and then for its complete confirmation test it by 
actual experiment, and we have the trinity that makes 
a blessed unity. 

Thus Munsell says (Psychology, page 151): "Faith 
thus stands as a sentinel at the door of the inner, and 
in a certain sense, higher functions of the soul, to 
guard the citadel from the intrusion of open or secret 
foes. Faith, therefore, is the highest, as it is the ulti- 
mate, product of human thought, the end to which all 
intellection tends, and in which it terminates. To men 
accustomed to sound the praises of reason and to un- 
derrate faith as childish, it may seem a lame and im- 
potent conclusion, that faith is not only the rational, 
but the only possible condition of human activity; but 
so it is. . . . The term faith, or belief, is here used as 
the true generic representative of the product of rea- 
son in its ultimate evolution, and includes every con- 



SOME INCONSISTENCIES. I9I 

dition from the slightest preponderance of probabili- 
ties to the absolute certainty of mathematical demon- 
stration." Now, submit the proposition of our author, 
" Life Beyond the Grave," 

1st. To reason. And as I have shown it can only 
examine its reasonableness, and answer more or less 
clearly that in lieu of all the evidence the facts show 
that it is possible, probable or even very hopeful. 

2d. Faith takes up this ultimate of reason, and says 
there is life beyond the grave; and as we cannot dem- 
onstrate until death, we are shut up to faith knowl- 
edge until the time when we shall be able to go over 
the river of death. Reason says, I don't know ; but a 
rational faith savs, I do know. " We know that if 
our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, 
we have a building of God." — II Cor. 4:1. 

Now let us say to our southern friends : In the 
north men not only walk on the water, but they take 
this very same water and preserve their killed meats 
for weeks, and months, and years. Our rationalist 
friend says I have submitted it to reason, and it don't 
tell me that it is true, therefore I don't believe it is 
true. It may be or it may not be true ; in fact I 
don't believe there is such a thing as water being hard 
enough to bear a team across the river ; but the friend 
which believed his neighbors, and went north, and 
walked on the icy rivers, says, I believe the proposi- 
tion ; I admit it looks unreasonable that meats should 
be kept from decay by ice, when it is natural for it to 
decay and spoil; but it is not more unreasonable or 
above my reason than the other proposition, and I 



192 bishop Foster's heresy. 

proved that to be true by experiment, and I know 
that if these men testify that it is true, that it must 
be true. Thus I come to the proposition " life be- 
yond the grave." 

The human heart hungers after God, peace and 
eternal life. Jesus Christ comes and offers peace with 
God, pardon, justification to every one that believes. 
Reason says it may or it may not be true; and our 
rationalist friend says, I don't believe in Christ, hence 
he stays in the dark. I say to him, Millions of hu- 
man souls have tried and found it true ; if you will 
come by faith, which is higher than reason, you may 
know ; but he refuses to come to demonstrate or test, 
hence he does not nor can he know. The believing 
friend accepts the rational testimony of others, be- 
lieves and comes to Christ, and finds pardon and 
peace demonstrates His power to save. This same 
Jesus Christ declares that there is " life beyond the 
grave." "Jesus said unto Martha, I am the resurrec- 
tion and the life; he that believeth in Me, though he 
were dead, yet shall he live." "I am the life." " He 
that believeth on me hath everlasting life." " I am the 
living bread which came down from heaven ; if any 
nian eat of this bread, he shall live forever." He 
raised the dead before a nation of witnesses. He 
arose himself after being dead and buried. 

Does death end all? Reason says, I don't know ; 
it may, or it may not; possibly it may, possibly not ; 
probably it may, probably not. There are many dif- 
ficulties in the way; there are many things that indi- 
cate life beyond. Faith says, I know that death does 



SOME INCONSISTENCIES. 1 93 

not end all. The rationalist, demanding more of rea- 
son than it can give, and refusing it the right to turn 
him over to the realm of faith, says, Reason does not 
know, therefore, I do not know. Faith says, Reason 
does not know, and it has no proof that death does 
end all, and has many reasons why it may not ; and I 
have more than reasons, I know that death does not 
end all ; there is life beyond the grave. 

Faith says, I believed my neighbors about the ice 
of the north, I tested by going and investigating; now 
these same worthy witnesses testify that ice preserves 
meats from decay and I know their evidence is wor- 
thy, for I have tested it and know. Jesus Christ pro- 
mised me salvation from sin and fear. I believed him, , 
and went to Him and found Him true. Now, He tells 
me again, that there is " life beyond the grave," and 
I know Him, I know His evidence is true, I know He 
rose from the dead, I know He promised to give me 
eternal life, hence, I know that death does not end all. 
Hence, the apostle Paul, in Rom. 5, says: " Therefore 
being justified by faith, we have peace with God 
through our Lord Jesus Christ," &c. ; i. e., faith (not 
reason) led him to Christ for salvation. Peace, joy, 
hope following inevitably. Therefore, verse 10, "If, 
when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by 
the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, 
we shall be saved by His life." I know Christ as my 
Saviour, and the greater includes the less. I know 
Him and to know Him is eternal life. Hence, I know 
death does not end all, not only by the evidence of 
the Scriptures' thoroughly established testimony, but 



194 BISHOP FOSTERS HERESY. 

by my faith in Him whom I have found absolutely 
trustworthy. He lives beyond the grave. He is the 
first fruits from the grave, and as the farmer knows 
from the first fruits that the harvest will come, so I 
know by his resurrection I shall live. Thus we have 
an answer to the question, Does death end all? posi- 
tive and clear in the negative. True, hot by a sense 
perception for none of us have been dead, except in 
swoons like Rev. Wm. Tennett. Not necessarily by a 
deduction of reason, but by, ist. The life, teaching, 
death and resurrection of Jesus Christ well and truly 
handed down to us by indubitable witnesses, and by, 
2d. A personal knowledge of Him in his power to 
save, " whom to know is eternal life." 

We do not ignore reason, we ask it for all it has. 
We add to its ultimatum faith in the rational evidence 
and the experimental assurance of Christ Jesus, and 
we add to that the witness of God's spirit which 
"beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the 
children of God, and if children then heirs, heirs of 
God and joint heirs with Jesus Christ, that we may be 
glorified together." — Rom. 8 : 16, 17. Now add to this 
a conscientious life. If any man will do His will he 
shall know of the doctrine, and we have a knowledge 
that is superior to any other knowledge, and can and 
does lift the soul above the maybe so, the guess 
work, the jugglery of priests, , " the misgivings, doubts 
and fears" of our rationalistic author. I have a con- 
scious knowledge of the life of Jesus in my soul, and 
am as sure of my heavenly title as any earthly pos- 
session. 



SOME INCONSISTENCIES. 195 

This knowledge does not and cannot come by our 
author's third method. Reason is but the one faculty. 
Faith and works, or an experience in divine things, 
must work together. Here is the trouble with all 
rationalists. They refuse in divine things to follow 
up reason to its legitimate fruit — faith, and then follow 
faith through its own glorious path to the coveted 
goal of full experimental assurance or conscious 
knowledge. 

This is the trouble, and the sooner they, as well as 
Christian teachers, fully understand it, the better for 
the race. We ask no unreasonable thing; we ask 
only what is granted in our every day life and in every 
department of human intelligence. We perceive the 
proposition, we reason and form judgments, w r e fear 
the evil and hope for the good, we believe for the 
good and push on our experiments until they are 
realized in our conscious possessions. In rejecting 
this only sensible course, rationalism deserves the 
condemnation of all sensible men as well as that of 
God, and we are forced to the only sensible conclu- 
sion with Christ that "This is the condemnation that 
light is come into the world, and men loved darkness 
rather than light, because their deeds were evil." — John 
3:19. " Ye will not come unto me." " Professing 
themselves to be wise, they become fools." " Trust 
your reason, we have been told, till we are tired of 
the phrase, and you will become atheists or agnostics. 
We take you at your word; we become agnostics." — 
Leslie Stephen. All right, you are a free moral agent ; 
go on. If you want to be a tramp, we cannot help it, 



196 bishop Foster's heresy. 

while you do not become amenable to the law. To 
refuse is the option of the human will. God has 
done his part. " What could have been done more to 
my vineyard, that I have not done in it." — Isa. 5 : 4. 
What has God left undone ? Why cannot these great 
intellects grasp the truth ? Where is the difficulty ? 
Is God at fault? Is it not well to pause here ? Why 
need we labor like Prof. Drummond so prodigiously 
that these giants may know the way and yet remain 
in the dark ? Does it require such deep learning, 
such acute reasoning faculties ? Does not the way 
seem plain? Cannot it be understood by the "way- 
faring man, though a fool?" Is the food placed so 
high that the humblest cannot reach it ? Wh^at then 
is to become of the great throbbing heart of human- 
ity ? What of the millions of unlettered men, women 
and children of the uncultured and unfortunate race ? 
Pause, ye Christian philosophers, and answer this fun- 
damental question. 

Listen, then, to the Master's answer : " Ye will not" 
He does not say ye cannot. Here is the secret of all 
the trouble. The way into this beautiful temple is a 
lowly way. " / am the way!' " And there was no 
comeliness in him, but as a root out of a dry ground," 
But by and through this lowly way all must come. 
" No man cometh unto the Father but by Me." Jo- 
seph, the learned counselor of the Sanhedrin ; Nico- 
demus, the ruler of the Jews; Saul, the proud and 
learned Pharisee ; Galleo and Newton, the mighty 
philosophers ; Wellington and Washington, the great 
generals ; Gladstone and a Webster all bowed at this 



SOME INCONSISTENCIES. 1 97 

lowly door and found admittance ; and millions upon 
millions of the laboring, toiling, weary, burdened 
masses have found entrance through this lowly door ; 
and the promise is as wide as the race, " Whosoever 
will may come." 

This is the natural way as well as the only way. 
The laborer works all the week and on Saturday re- 
ceives the end of his reason, faith and work — his wages ; 
the farmer sows his grain, and in the harvest reaps the 
results of his reason, faith and work in a golden re- 
ward. He sows abundantly ; he waits patiently and 
believingly through the winter's snows and cold. He 
rejoices in the spring and shouts his "harvest home." 
This is a satisfactory way. There is no one truth 
more fully established. While we cannot expect all 
the blessed rewards of reason, faith and works in this 
life, but like the farmer who does his part, receives all 
along a blessed result, but the full benefit at the last, 
so the Christian receives a hundred fold in this w r orld, 
and in the next eternal life. The hundred fold con- 
sists in a blessed assurance or foretaste of heaven; a 
sweet peace that passeth all understanding ; the abid- 
ing presence of God; the removal of the sting of 
death. All fear of death, as of a conquered foe, is re- 
moved ; the constant testimony of dying friends, as 
well as that of Christians in all ages that death is not 
to be dreaded, and that the manifestations in death 
are wonderful and precious. As the flush of day 
breaks the darkness and supercedes the stars before 
the opening glory of the king of day, so the testi- 
mony of the ages is, that " It is not death to die." 



198 bishop Foster's heresy. 

From Stephen until now the testimony has been and 
is the illumined face, the opening heavens, the joyous 
shout, " O, death, where is thy sting; O, grave, where 
is thy victory?" while sinners and unbelievers uni- 
versally dieth, as the tramp spends the winter, in the 
cold and darkness. " I am taking a leap in the dark." 
"I am abandoned by God and man." " Shall I sue for 
mercy ? Come, come, no weakness ; let's be a man 
to the last." " I shall be glad to find a hole to creep 
out of the world at." 

Is this glorious knowledge of "life beyond the 
grave" by our author's third method? We answer, 
no ; but by a rational faith, tested by a personal ac- 
quaintance with Jesus Christ, its author, "who has 
brought life and immortality to light through the 
gospel." " Who was believed on in the world and 
received up into glory." And while it is sad, it is 
nevertheless true, that " straight is the gate, and nar- 
row is the way which leadeth unto life, and few there be 
that find it." 

SEVENTH INCONSISTENCY. 

Our author's inconsistency shows itself in an over- 
whelming manner in the way he compels everything 
to pay tribute to his theory of spirit-man and body- 
machine. He claims to submit it to the reason (page 
1 3), but his imagination, his memory, his conscious- 
ness, and the Bible are used whenever he thinks they 
can be twisted to answer his purpose. I only quote 
one page (82): " Let us look at that babe for an illus- 



SOME INCONSISTENCIES. 1 99 

tration. When it is first placed .upon the mother's 
breast it is to her mind a most beautiful thing, but to 
nobody else's mind, for a babe is never beautiful — it 
becomes so afterward. A rrrother's enthusiasm covers 
it with a halo, and to her heart and eye it is more 
beautiful than an angel when it is laid upon her 
bosom. But if you should go there after two or three 
days and look down into the face of the child you 
would find simply a lump of flesh ; no indications of 
anything else ; for a baby's eye has no more intelli- 
gence in it than a doll's eye, not a particle. There it 
lies, unintelligent and incapable of expression, breath- 
ing and nursing at the mother's breast, as purely a 
little animal as ever there was in the forests of the 
world. But go forward fifteen days from the time it 
was put on the mother's breast — it is yet small, and 
its life imperfectly developed, but do you not see 
somebody looking out of the window at you? Do 
you not see that something has come there with an 
interrogation point? This is a baby's soul." 

Was an author of a theory ever so hard pushed ? 
Must a new-born babe be forced into the arguments, 
traduced and slandered. I know Jesus illustrated by 
infants, took them in his arms and blessed them. 
He did not say, hand me that little animal, but 
he said, suffer them to come to me for of such is 
the kingdom of heaven. St. Luke said ch. 18:15, 
"They brought unto him infants" {brephee}) The re- 
vised version has it rendered babes. St. Peter said, 
"as new-born babes {brephee) desire the sincere milk 
of the word." 



200 bishop Foster's heresy. 



According to the Jewish custom of presenting the 
babe at the eighth day for circumcision, it is most 
probable that these infants were eight days old; 
strange our author did hot say eight instead of fifteen, 
then he might have made a point so that* the soul- 
birth and circumcision should be coeval. Or he might 
have put it according to the theologians of Holland 
in the seventeenth century, who determined exactly 
that the soul of a boy was created forty days and 
girls eighty days after conception, and this would have 
saved the temptation of some mothers from killing 
the little brute. Our author said in a sermon at the 
New Jersey Conference, at Trenton, in his Sunday 
morning sermon, 1887, that last week, here in Trenton, 
there were two babes born. The one a little animal, 
the other a little angel, The mother pressed the little 
animal to her breast. The friends said what a sweet 
babe. They clothed and cared for it. After awhile, 
a few weeks, that mother will be looking into the little 
animal's eyes, and she will start back and say, " I see 
another babe looking out of the first babe's eyes 
at me." 

" The first babe is as purely an animal as ever was 
born in the woods. The spirit-babe, the invisible 
babe, is the true babe. The mother is mistaken in 
thinking that little animal her babe. The spirit-babe 
is her proper babe. The first babe will sicken and 
die, and she will handle its cold form and weep as she 
lays it in the grave, but her real babe will slip away 
from her, leaving the little animal forever." Page 28, 
our author says: "These babes are completely and 



SOME INCONSISTENCIES. 201 

utterly dissimilar." "They have absolutely nothing 
in common." 

Is it necessary to pause to show the inconsistency 
of such philosophy? The kitten is born blind, rather 
with closed eyes. Is it therefore not a kitten until it 
opens its eyes ? 

I have failed to notice any such distinction in the 
seven children that have been born to us. They have 
differed as to their quickness to notice the mother peer- 
ing into the little eye; also in taking food, and develop- 
ment of limb, and in cutting teeth, but I never thought 
the first expression of intelligence in the eye, or smile 
on the lip, any more than the cry, was the " coming of 
a babe's soul." I supposed the soul and body were 
begotten in conception, and both developed harmoni- 
ously, and that they together made a child, and that 
they were both born at once, and the one was as per- 
fect in its development as the other, and that the lack 
of intellectual development was no argument that 
there was no mind, or soul, only that it was not 
developed, any more than the lack of development in 
the body (it only being able to nurse) proved that it 
had no body. In fact, if development was necessary, 
I should rather think we better wait until the power 
to know right from wrong had developed. Two babes 
born last week of one mother, and yet not twin ! One 
an animal, 1 one an angel. Babe No. I is a little 
animal, as much so as ever was born of a wild cat. 
It has claws and toes, eyes and ears, hair and skin, 
flesh and blood. It eats and grows, kicks and bites, 
sings and cries — well, everything that any animal does ; 



202 bishop Foster's heresy. 

" it is as much an animal as ever was born in the 
woods." Of course it propagates its species ; then 
dies to give room for its young animals. 

Babe No. 2 has what ? Eyes and ears, a nose and 
mouth, stomach and bowels ? Oh ! no ! no ! No. 2 
uses No. i's eyes, &c. Oh! No. 2 has no eyes and 
ears, no mouth and nose, no stomach and bowels, no 
brains. He that is the proprietor and master, the 
angel babe,* has no need for these things. He only 
uses those of Babe No. 1. Well ! well ! I should 
think him a very dependent kind of a proprietor. 
But if he has no eyes or ears, no nose or mouth, or 
stomach or bowels; no flesh or blood, or brains, what 
in the world has he ? If he has nothing in common 
with Babe No. 1, what has he? If he has no eyes or 
ears, what a queer looking object he must be? If he 
has no brains, how does he think? And if he has no 
feet and legs, or wings, how does he get about ? What 
a pity our author did not tell us what he had, since he 
has nothing in common with Babe No. 1. I know our 
author tries to help his case by a foot-note, claiming 
that he does not mean "that the spirit is not present 
until several days," &c, but he does not help the 
matter. Are there two babes ? Is the No. 1 purely an 
animal ? Where is No. 2 these fifteen days ? If Babe 
No. 1 dies within fifteen days, what becomes of No. 2 ? 

Can it be that a great Bishop can think so of the 
human body divine in which the Holy Ghost deigns 
to dwell? And even Jesus took upon him our nature 
and was made in all points like unto us, not the nature 
of the angel babe, for the suffering of death. Ah, 



SOME INCONSISTENCIES. 203 

sad must be the day for the Christian world when 
such theology as this shall be accepted. 

" The shepherds came in haste and found the babe 
lying in the manger ; and on the eighth day he was 
taken to the temple for circumcision, and Simeon, that 
aged and devout man, unto whom it had been revealed 
by the Holy Ghost that he should not die until he 
had seen the Christ, took him up in his arms, and 
said : * Now, Lord, lettest Thou Thy servant depart in 
peace, for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation.' " Were 
there two babes here? one an animal the other an 
angel; and had they nothing in common? Which 
did the shepherds find in the manger, and which one 
did Simeon say was the Lord's Christ, which he had 
seen? And which one was the world's Redeemer? 



CONCLUSION. 

Our author cannot fail to see the fundamental dif- 
ference between his system, "man is a spirit," and its 
logical sequence, the spirit never dies, the body never 
has a resurrection; and the system of man's "materio- 
spiritual nature" and its logical sequence, the spirit 
leaves the body for a season, and the final reunion at 
the resurrection. I am sure no thoughtful reader 

will doubt this conclusion. As Rev. Dr. D- , a 

friend of mine, and an admirer of the teaching of 
"Beyond the Grave," admitted to me that "there can 
be no doubt but there is a wide difference between 
Bishop Foster's teaching and the teaching of the 
church, and that it is not a difficult task in this re- 
spect to show that his teaching is not orthodox." 
This should be sufficient ; this is all that should of 
necessity be conceded to cause a demand for an in- 
vestigation ; and yet no halt is called : and when 
I sent charges through my presiding elder to the 
General Conference, no notice was taken of them any 
further than to put them into the waste basket. What 
is to be done ? Has it come to this, in the early days 
of Methodism, even while she reaches out to pluck 
the sheaves of the first fruits of the harvest she al- 
lows a Bishop to sow broadcast the seeds of heresy 



CONCLUSION. 205 

which shall bring forth a withering mildew ? Is this 
the function of a Bishop ? Has it come to this, that 
instead of being set as a guard to expose and drive 
away strange doctrines from our midst, he arrogates 
to himself the prerogative of an innovator? Has it 
come to this, that a Bishop may sit in his high place 
and write, and preach from the episcopal pulpit Swe- 
denborgianism, Pelagianism, and sentimental rational- 
istic guess-work ; forcing out our old-fashioned ortho- 
doxy with impunity ? Have we so far degenerated 
that in the very beginning of our career we have not 
enough real genuine love of the unadulterated truth 
of our church to attend to our doctrines and disci- 
pline simply because a great Bishop chooses to pro- 
mulgate his own strange hallucinations? I believe we 
have, but it is a very delicate task. The Board of 
Bishops feel a delicacy in criticising a brother Bishop 
for various reasons. The official papers know the 
delicacy of sitting in judgment upon the work of a 
Bishop ; and no doubt some few (very few, indeed, I 
think) of our ministers in all of the ranks of the 
ministry sympathize with our author's heresy. 
Among others we might name Rev. Dr. Daniel 
Curry, who has had no little hand in the upper circles 
of our Methodism for the last decade. But who 
doesn't know the difficulty in dealing with a heresy of 
this kind ? If he had advocated a second probation, 
a limited atonement, or man's evolution from the 
monkey, he might have been churched, but when he 
leaves the limbs and leaves of the tree of doctrine 



206 bishop Foster's heresy. 

untouched, and strikes under ground at the taproot, 
he remains a magnificent Bishop. " Man has no soul ; 
he is a soul." " Man is a spirit." " There are no 
facts which point to a return to life of the body which 
is destroyed." " Death is not by sin." Sin, which 
entered the world " by one' man, is new, while death 
is ancient." Who doesn't know these to be taproots of 
our system, which he so ruthlessly cuts off? and yet, 
because he cuts under ground, he seems to have got- 
ten his work in well, "like the mole, while the farmer 
slept." But who doesn't know that when a Bishop 
in the past has swung away from orthodoxy, it 
has been a difficult task to bring him to justice? See 
e. g. y the " History of Rationalism," Bishop Colenso ; 
and yet he denied the atonement, endless punish- 
ment; or Canon Farrar, of the English church. 
Hence it is not to be wondered at that our author has 
been allowed to go free, when we consider his age, 
his ability and his piety. But oh, shall we now, in 
the very foundation-laying period of our history, al- 
low even a Bishop, who has so far forgotten his posi- 
tion and responsibility, as to allow himself to become 
the conscious or unconscious medium by which a 
fundamental truth of our holy Christianity has been 
stabbed, even to the very heart ? Shall we, I say, 
allow this in the very beginning when, to me at least, 
I see in Methodism, pure ancl simple, the means by 
which scriptural holiness is to be spread over the 
world, and the kingdoms of this world brought to 
Christ? Shall we, as four millions of our people, 



CONCLUSION. 207 

spread out over this great republic from ocean to 
ocean, and from the lakes to the gulf, everywhere 
united as a solid army against rum, Romanism and 
infidelity ; shall we, as we are girdling in other lands 
the old trees of idolatry and Romanism ; shall we, 
who are capturing the islands of the sea, and causing 
the desolate and solitary places to be glad, and the 
watchmen to cry, The day dawns; shall we, above all 
others, allow this insidious heresy to flow from the 
head centres of our beloved church as an insidious 
poison, down through every pore of our great Zion ? 
O, God of Wesley, of Fletcher, of Watson, forbid ! I 
beseech thee, forbid ! O, God of St. Paul and of the 
martyrs, forbid it ! O, God of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
whom thou didst raise from the dead, and crowned 
His mortality with immortality at Thy right hand, 
forbid that we, as the great centre and forefront, of 
Thy church militant, should allow such a calamity to 
come upon us. 

I am persuaded, yea, I know, that our author is 
wrong — fundamentally, eternally wrong. I have made 
my protest in the proper disciplinary course. I now 
appeal to the Board of Bishops of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church, of which our author is a member. 
I appeal to the editors of our church papers, and 
periodicals, and publishers. I appeal to every Metho- 
dist preacher, yea, to every Methodist of our whole 
church; and to the universal church of our Lord 
Jesus Christ I appeal for help It must not, it shall 
not be that our grand old doctrines shall be attacked 



208 bishop Foster's heresy. 

with impunity by those who are set for the defence of 
our faith. It is bad enough in this world of sin and 
error to have to meet the attacks of our enemies. 
There is enough of rationalism in this land, brought 
across the sea, without having our Bishops, sitting 
upon their thrones of power, promulgating it at our 
expense. I demand that it shall not be palliated, 
winked at or smoothed over. I demand that " Beyond 
the Grave " be branded, as it is, heresy. And if pub- 
lished at all, it must be denominated " The Heresy of 
Bishop Foster." 

Bishop Hurst (History of Rationalism, page 575) 
beautifully says: "We would not utter a syllable of 
needless alarm ; but is it not time that the American 
Church take note of the efforts by which the ration- 
alists of every grade, are striving to take away the 
cardinal truths of the Christian revelation? Their 
predecessors in Europe sought to make children 
ashamed of old truths, by casting sarcasm on the 
strong faith and evangelical piety of the forefathers." 

" The church in this country has partaken of the 
pride awakened by our unexampled national pros- 
perity, and many of her noblest sons had well nigh 
come to the conclusion, before the outbreak of the 
late civil war, that she must inevitably prosper." "But 
without faith nothing can be accomplished, and three 
decades may be sufficient to so change the whole 
aspect of our religious life that the church may be- 
come thoroughly rationalistic; her sanctuaries fre- 
quented, and her posts of honor occupied, by the 



CONCLUSION. 2O9 

worshipers of reason. The fidelity of the past will 
not be able to meet the emergency of the present." 
"Our civilization is undergoing a complete revolu- 
tion." " If this land is to be blessed with pure faith, 
as in past years, a faith strong enough to repel every 
blow of skepticism;" "If we would secure for future 
years an uncorrupted faith," .... "The duty of the 
present hour must be discharged." 

Thus, I have tried to discharge my duty. God 
alone knows my heart. The future alone can disclose 
the results. And now with a faith unshaken, I launch 
my humble efforts upon the current of the world's 
literature, hoping and praying that the guiding spirit 
of God may direct its usefulness and its destiny, and 
if I shall bear some humble part in the promulgation 
of truth in battling with error, to God be all the 
glory. 

Note. — Since writing the conclusion to my unpretentious 
volume I had placed in my hands a little volume written by 
L. B. Caldwell, Professor of Physics in East Tennessee Wes- 
ley an University, published in 1884. It is written with a 
strong hand and should be read by every one reading "Beyond 
the Grave." I find myself supported by this Professor of 
Physics as against our author. In his editorial he says : "Its 
general tendency is deranging if not damning. It starts out 
with the theory which it purposes to fix in your mind, reckless 
of the wrecks it leaves by the way. ... He covers himself 
carefully under the wing of the Bible, but is careless of the 
havoc he makes of its teachings. To tbe author of ' Beyond 
the Grave ' the resurrection means no more than it did to 
Emanuel Swedenborg. These authors seem to think very 
closely together, and if the teachings of the Methodist church 



210 bishop Foster's heresy. 

are true, this volume, ' Beyond the Grave, ' is distracting, 
damaging and damning. ... If the teaching of this volume 
be true, the apostles and early Christians were mistaken about 
the resurrection of Christ, and the thoughts clustering about 
an Easter Sabbath are a farce." 

Again, as to the importance of the subject (page 7): "No 
class of thoughts act more energetically in forming human 
character than those which relate to ' Beyond the Grave. ' . . . 
And nowhere may error take quicker and more vigorous 
root." 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 

Introduction, by a Methodist Minister of Many Years . 3 

Preface, by the Author 11 

Chapter I— " Is Man a Spirit?" 25 

Chapter II— Is Man a Spirit? , 35 

Chapter III — Bishop Foster's Heresy in the Light of the 
Resurrection as Taught by the Christian 
Church from the Apostles until Now . . 54 

Chapter IV— Bishop Foster's Heresy in the Light of the 
Resurrection as Taught by the Holy 
Scriptures 74 

Chapter V — Bishop Foster's Heresy Compared with 
other Heresies, " Pelagianism " and 
11 Swedenborgianism " 99 

Chapter VI — Some of Our Author's Inconsistencies . . 127 

First Inconsistency 127 

Second Inconsistency 128 

Third Inconsistency 143 

Fourth Inconsistency 167 

Fifth Inconsistency 171 

Sixth Inconsistency 179 

Seventh Inconsistency 198 

Conclusion 204 



-I*. •> \"?<*,*^*r 







Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: August 2005 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

111 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township. PA 18066 
(724)779-2111 



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